


Hogwarts reads Socerers Stone (Hermione Granger x Harry´s sister)

by Femreaderstoriesfan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Characters Reading Harry Potter Books, F/F, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Original Character(s), Ron Weasley Bashing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2020-01-04 04:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18336269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Femreaderstoriesfan/pseuds/Femreaderstoriesfan
Summary: I do not own anything except the Original Characters and this idea to write the story. The Story will not be just a copy of the original story from J.K Rowling  the more the story progress the more it will be different.Sorry for my bad English.Harry Potter and the Socerers Stone and it´s characters belong only to J.K Rowling.Kira Potter and Raven Malfoy belong to me.





	1. Chapter one: The Boy and the Girl who loved

**Author's Note:**

> Harry Potter and the Socerers Stone and it´s characters belong only to J.K Rowling.  
> Kira Potter and Raven Malfoy belong to me. I hope you enjoy it.

**Chapter one: The Boy and the Girl who loved**

**Hogwarts read The books**

Seven Books werte sent to Hogwarts and one letter that explained that these Books are about Harry and his sister Kira Potter. Some people like Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, The Malfoys and Lily and James Potter arrived and started to read the First Book

**Book 1**

**"CHAPTER ONE: THE BOY AND THE GIRL WHO LIVED."** Dumbledore read.

"I don't know who could it be?" Fred asked saracstic and looket at Harry and Kira. Kira was sitting on a couch next to her girlfriend Hermione Granger. She glared at him slightly.

**"Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."**

"Perfectly normal? More like perfectly boring." Kira said with a blank face. Some people were chuckling at this.

**They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.**

"Muggle thing." Hermione said at the many curious looks from pure bloods and some Half-bloods

**He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere.**

"So you have a walrus, a horse, and a whale in your family, right Harry?" Fred asked and Harry nodded with a smirk. "Well, I wouldn't call them as Family members" Kira said.

"Good to know that Petunia hasn't changed," Lily said shaking her head.

**The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somebody would discover it. They didn't think they could bear it if anyone found out about the Potters.**

"There is nothing wrong with the Potters!" Several people exclaimed, particularly Harry, Sirius and Remus.

**Mrs. Potter was Mrs. Dursley's sister, but they hadn't met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband**

Remus and Sirius growled at this. Lily had a sad smile on her lips.

 **were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be**.

"Thank goodness for that," Harry said. Kira nodded. " I would rather led Voldemort kill me than be like them" she said. "Why do you compare them to you know who?" Hermione asked. "Well, Voldemort is an evil Wizards who hate Muggled for existing and the Dursleys are just "perfectly normal" Muggles who hate everythind that has something to do with magic. I don't see the difference between them...well maybe except that the Dursleys didn't want to kills us... i think" Kira answered.

**The Dursleys shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Potters arrived in the street. The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This boy was another good reason for keeping the Potters away; they didn't want Dudley mixing with a child like that.**

**When Mr. and Mrs. Dursley woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts,there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Dursley hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work,**

"He has a most boring tie?" Hermione asked. "Actually several," Harry answered. "That means all of them." She said smirking.

**and Mrs. Dursley gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Dudley into his high chair. None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. "Little tyke," chortled Mr. Dursley as he left the house.He got into his car and backed out of number four's drive. It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar -- a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Dursley didn't realize what he had seen -- then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn't a map in sight.**

"What were you doing there, Professor McGonagall?" Kira asked her curious. "You will find when we continue. How do you realized it was me?" McGonagall said. "There is only one cat that I know that can read a map." Kira said.

**What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Dursley blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back.**

"I know that stare" The Marauders, the Weasely twins and (what actually shocked everyone) Kira. " I understand the rest. But what have you done?" Hermione asked her." You will find it out I guess." Kira said grinning sheepishly. James and Sirius grinned at this while Lily and Remus rolled their eyes.

**As Mr. Dursley drove around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive -- no, looking at the sign; cats couldn't read maps or signs.Mr. Dursley gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he drove toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of drills he was hoping to get that day.**

**But on the edge of town, drills were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn't help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks. Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes -- the getups you saw on young people! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion.**

**He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdoes standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all; why, that man had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him!**

**But then it struck Mr. Dursley that this was probably some silly stunt -- these people were obviously collecting for something**

"Of course they have nothing better to do then collecting for something and wearing cloaks. Because it's "perfectly normal" for a muggle to wear a green cloak." Kira said sarcasticly. Hermione and Harry snickered at this.

**... yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Dursley arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on drills.**

**Mr. Dursley always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn't, he might have found it harder to concentrate on drills that morning. He didn't see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though people down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open- mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Dursley, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different people. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he'd stretch his legs and walk across the road**

"What?" Harry asked in surprise. "He did what?" "Probably to buy himself more food. He definitly looks like a person who has been starving for years." Kira said

**to buy himself a bun from the bakery.**

"I'm pretty sure that food is his true love." Kira said.

**He'd forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker's. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn't know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch was whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn't see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.**

**"The Potters, that's right, that's what I heard yes, their children, Harry and Kira"**

"And so the rumors begin." Harry commented dryly. Kira tensed a little. _Is that the day?_ She thought. Hermione noticed that Kira tensed and put a hand around her waiste. "You okay?" she asked her quietly. Kira looked at her and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine." She answered. Remus, Sirius, Snape, James and Lily tensed up too. .

**Mr. Dursley stopped dead.**

"Shame that he didn't." George said and Fred snickered. Kira nodded with a smirk on her lips.

**Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it.**

**He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking... no, he was being stupid. Potter wasn't such an unusual name.**

"In the Muggle world it isn't," Hermione exclaimed. "But in the wizarding world it is."

**He was sure there were lots of people called Potter who had a son or a daughter called Harry or Kira . Come to think of it, he wasn't even sure his nephew and niece were called Harry and Kira. He'd never even seen them . It might have been Harvey and Katja. Or Harold and Katara.**

"Who would name their child Harold or Katara?" Neville asked in confusion. "I don't know which name sounds more riddiculous Harold or Harvey. I think I found new nicknames for you. You like being called Harold right. "Kira said. "Don't you dare call me Harold or Harvey, Katja." Harry teased her. " How dare you talk to me like that Harvey." Kira teased him back.

**There was no point in worrying Mrs. Dursley; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn't blame her -- if he'd had a sister like that...**

"A sister like what?" James asked slightly angry. "A witch." Kira answered not meeting his eyes.

**but all the same, those people in cloaks...**

**He found it a lot harder to concentrate on drills that afternoon and when he left the building at five o'clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door."Sorry," he grunted,**

"Harvey, did you heared that! He just apologized." Kira said shocked. "Don't call me Harvey!" Harry said laughing at her shocked face.

**as the tiny old man stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Dursley realized that the man was wearing a violet cloak. He didn't seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, "Don't be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!" And the old man hugged Mr. Dursley around the middle and walked off.**

"Yes it is a "very happy day" Kira said in a bitter voice. She couldn't understand how so someone could be happy about a day hers and Harrys parents died. Some people in the room whinced at her word and her tone. "Kira." Hermione said sadly and kissed her cheek. Kira didn't reponded she just glared at the book in Dumbeldores hands. Hermione sighed a litte sad and took Kiras hand into hers. Lily frowend at this. James smiled sadly.

**Mr. Dursley stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination- As he pulled into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw -- and it didn't improve his mood -- was the tabby cat he'd spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes. "Shoo!" said Mr. Dursley loudly. The cat didn't move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior?**

"No," Kira said shaking her head. "But it is normal Professor McGonagall behavior." She smirked. Professor McGonagal gave her a stern look. Hermione smiled at Kira. A few Minutes ago she was upsed and now she is teasing and smirking at Professor McGonagal.

**Mr. Dursley wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.**

**Mrs. Dursley had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door's problems with her daughter and how Dudley had learned a new word ("Won't!").**

"Bravo!" Raven (Dracos sister who were sitting on a couch with her parents and her brother) she said sarcastically and clapped. The twins joined her clapping.

**Mr. Dursley tried to act normally. When Dudley had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news: "And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation's owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern." The newscaster allowed himself a grin.**

**"Most mysterious. And now, over to Jim McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Jim?"**

**"Well, Ted," said the weatherman, "I don't know about that, but it's not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they've had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps people have been celebrating Bonfire Night early -- it's not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight." Mr. Dursley sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain. Owls flying by daylight. Mysterious people in cloaks all over the place. And a whisper, a whisper about the Potters...**

**Mrs. Dursley came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He'd have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. "Err -- Petunia, dear -- you haven't heard from your sister lately, have you." As he had expected, Mrs. Dursley looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn't have a sister."No," she said sharply. "Why?" "Funny stuff on the news," Mr. Dursley mumbled. "Owls... shooting stars... and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today..." "So?" snapped Mrs. Dursley."Well, I just thought... maybe... it was something to do with... you know... her crowd."**

"And what exactly does that mean 'her crowd'?" Sirius growled.

"That would be wizards and anything to do with magic really," Harry and Kira said at the same time.

**Mrs. Dursley sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Dursley wondered whether he dared tell her he'd heard the name "Potter." He decided he didn't dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, "Their son -- he'd be about Dudley's age now, wouldn't he?"**

"Well at least he knows something!" Hermione snapped. "But why does he only mentioned Harry. Aren't you at the same age as Harry?" Ginny asked. Kira shrugged. "I don't know." She said. "Actually you are one year older than Harry. But we had to hide you from the world so that you would be safe. Only Remus, Sirius and Dumbeldore knew about you." Lily explained. Kira looked at her surprised.

**"I suppose so," said Mrs. Dursley stiffly.**

**"What's his name again? Howard, isn't it."**

"He didn't even know your name?" Hermione exclaimed angrily. "Well not at that point. But I can assure you he knew it well enough in a few years," Harry answered in the same tone. "You sure about this Howard?" Kira said smirking at Harry.

**"Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me."**

**"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dursley, his heart sinking horribly. "Yes, I quite agree." He didn't say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Dursley was in the bathroom, Mr. Dursley crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.**

**Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? If it did... if it got out that they were related to a pair of -- well, he didn't think he could bear it. The Dursleys got into bed. Mrs. Dursley fell asleep quickly but Mr. Dursley lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Potters were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Dursley. The Potters knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind....**

**He couldn't see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on -- he yawned and turned over -- it couldn't affect them....**

"Jinxed it," Harry muttered. Lily and James looked at each other. _I hope Petunia threated them good._ Lily thought. _Why were they living with them and not with Padfoot?_ James thought.

**How very wrong he was.[**]**

**Mr. Dursley might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. It didn't so much as quiver when a car door slammed on the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all.**

**A man appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you'd have thought he'd just popped out of the ground. The cat's tail twitched and its eyes narrowed. Nothing like this man had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice.**

"Dumbledore!" The twins exclaimed excitedly. Dumbledore chuckled. Kira narrowed her eyes. She didn't trust him the way Harry and the others did not after what happend. Lily noticed it and looked conerned at Kira. Kira looked at her and shook her head.

**This man's name was Albus Dumbledore.**

**Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome.**

**He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, "I should have known." He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter.**

"I'll explain later," Hermione said.

**He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again -- the next lamp flickered into darkness.**

**Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer,**

"Is that its real name sir?" Hermione asked. "No, it is called the Deluminator Miss Granger." Dumbledore answered. "It seems like our knowing it all. Don't actually know it all." Fred and George said teasingly. Kira chuckled loudly at this. Hermione looked at her slightly shocked and hit her shoulder. Kira stopped chuckling but she still didn't hide her grin.

**until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Dursley, they wouldn't be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Dumbledore slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn't look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.**

**"Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall." He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her black hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.**

**"How did you know it was me?" she asked.**

**"My dear Professor, I've never seen a cat sit so stiffly." "You'd be stiff if you'd been sitting on a brick wall all day," said Professor McGonagall.**

"All day?" Hermione wondered aloud.

**"All day?**

"Hermione you think like Dumbledore!" George exclaimed.

"She'll take that as a compliment," Harry told him and nodded to Hermione who was beaming. I hope not Kira thought

**When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here." Professor McGonagall sniffed angrily.**

**"Oh yes, everyone's celebrating, all right," she said impatiently.**

"Not everyone," Remus and Sirius muttered quietly both looking pale. Kira tensed up and hid her face in Hermiones shoulder, who was caressing Kiras back. Lily and James both had a tears in their eyes.

**"You'd think they'd be a bit more careful, but no -- even the Muggles have noticed something's going on. It was on their news." She jerked her head back at the Dursleys' dark living-room window. "I heard it. Flocks of owls... shooting stars.... Well, they're not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent -- I'll bet that was Dedalus Diggle. He never had much sense."**

**"You can't blame them," said Dumbledore gently. "We've had precious little to celebrate for eleven years."**

**"I know that," said Professor McGonagall irritably. "But that's no reason to lose our heads. People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors." She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Dumbledore here, as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn't, so she went on. "A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about us all.**

**I suppose he really has gone, Dumbledore?"**

**"It certainly seems so," said Dumbledore. "We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a lemon drop?"**

**"A what?"**

**"A lemon drop. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."**

**"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for lemon drops. "As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone -" *][*"My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name. All this 'You- Know-Who' nonsense -- for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort."**

Most of those gathered flinched with the exception of Dumbledore, Remus, Sirius , James, Lily and of course the Potter siblings Harry and Kira. Hermione, who had gotten somewhat used to the name, only winced slightly. Kira noticed this and kissed her cheek.

**Professor McGonagall flinched, but Dumbledore, who was unsticking two lemon drops, seemed not to notice. "It all gets so confusing if we keep saying 'You-Know-Who.' I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort's name."**

**"I know you haven 't, said Professor McGonagall, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. "But you're different. Everyone knows you're the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Voldemort, was frightened of." "You flatter me," said Dumbledore calmly. "Voldemort had powers I will never have."**

"Because you're too noble to use them sir," Harry said smiling at him . Dumbledore returned the smile before turning back to the book.

**"Only because you're too -- well -- noble to use them."**

**"It's lucky it's dark. I haven't blushed so much since Madam Pomfrey told me she liked my new earmuffs."**

"Too much information" Ron said. Kira smiled a little.

**Professor McGonagall shot a sharp look at Dumbledore and said, "The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone's saying? About why he's disappeared? About what finally stopped him?" It seemed that Professor McGonagall had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a woman had she fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever "everyone" was saying, she was not going to believe it until Dumbledore told her it was true. Dumbledore, however, was choosing another lemon drop and did not answer.**

"What they're saying," she pressed on, "is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric's Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor is that Lily and James Potter are -- are -- that they're -- dead. "

By now, McGonagall and Sprout were both wiping tears out of their eyes. Sirius and Remus dropped their heads into their hands. Hermione was comforting Kira who was sitting emotionless without reactions. Harry was sitting with his eyes closed. He was more concerend about his sister at this moment. He knew that she wouldn't dare cry in front of everyone. She would wait until everyone was asleep and cry herself in her sleep. Thank God, she has Hermione who is watching her, he thought and smiled a sad smile at them. Lily started to tearing up a little while James was trying to calm her down.

**Dumbledore bowed his head. Professor McGonagall gasped.**

**"Lily and James... I can't believe it... I didn't want to believe it... Oh, Albus..." Dumbledore reached out and patted her on the shoulder."I know... I know..." he said heavily.Professor McGonagall's voice trembled as she went on. "That's not all. They're saying he tried to kill their children, Harry and Kira. But -- he couldn't. He couldn't kill them. No one knows why, or how, but they're saying that when he couldn't kill Harry Potter, Voldemort's power weakend and as -- he tried to kill Kira Potter .--His Power somehow broke -- and that's why he's gone." Dumbledore nodded glumly.**

" **It's -- it's true." faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done... all the people he's killed... he couldn't kill two little kids.a little boy. It's just astounding... of all the things to stop him... but how in the name of heaven did how did they survive?"**

"Believe me Professor, We've wondered the same thing," Harry said glumly. Kira nodded.

**"We can only guess," said Dumbledore. "We may never know."**

Harry and Kira looked at Dumbledore he ignored. Kira huffed.

**Professor McGonagall pulled out a lace handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Dumbledore gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch.**

**It had twelve hands but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge.**

**It must have made sense to Dumbledore, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, "Hagrid's late. I suppose it was he who told you I'd be here, by the way?"**

**"Yes," said Professor McGonagall. "And I don't suppose you're going to tell me why you're here, of all places?" "I've come to bring Harry and Kira to their aunt and uncle. They're the only family they have left now."**

Harry shook his head. "Not necessarily true," he said looking over at all the red heads and his sister and her girlfriend.

**"You don't mean -- you can't mean the people who live here!" cried Professor McGonagall, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. "Dumbledore -- you can't. I've been watching them all day. You couldn't find two people who are less like us. And they've got this son -- I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Harry and Kira Potter come and live here!"**

"Thanks Professor." Harry said, then mumbled under his breath, "Glad to know someone had sense that day." Kira nodded glaring at the Headmaster.

**"It's the best place for them ," said Dumbledore firmly. "Their aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to them when they´re older. I´ve written them a letter."**

Before Lily could even open her mouth to yell at Dumbledore."A letter!? You gave Kira and Harry to this awfull people and you left them a letter to explain everything? Are you mad??" Hermione said angry. Kira put her arms around her and whispered soft words of comfort in Hermiones ear to calm her down. Kira glared at Dumbledore. Yes she hated him but she didn´t want her Girlfriend to murder him...yet. Lily also glared at the headmaster.

**"A letter." repeated Professor McGonagall faintly, sitting back down on the wall. "Really, Dumbledore, you think you can explain all this in a letter. These people will never understand him! They'll be famous -- a legend -- I wouldn't be surprised if today was known as Harry and Kira Potter day in the future**

"No." Harry and Kira said firmly at the twins.   
"Oh come on, Harry, Kira just think about it-"  
" – for one whole day you wont be the only scrawny git in!  
"No." Kira said angry glaring them. "I don´t want this to be the Harry and Kira Potter day. If you forgot on this day our parents died. I don´t care that Voldemort disappeard on this day. He disppeard for eleven years and then he came back!". She said angry. Hermione rubbed her back, Kira put her head on Hermione shoulder hiding her face there.

**\-- there will be books written about them**

"How many are we in again Hermione?" Harry teased his friend who stuck her tongue out at him. Kira chuckled and kissed Hermiones cheek.

**\-- every child in our world will know their name!"**   
**"Exactly," said Dumbledore, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. "It would be enough to turn every child's head. Famous before they can walk and talk! Famous for something they won't even remember! Can you see how much better off they'll be, growing up away from all that until they're ready to take it?"**

**Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, "Yes -- yes, you're right, of course. But how are they getting here, Dumbledore?" She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Harry and Kira underneath it.**   
**"Hagrid's bringing them."**   
**"You think it -- wise -- to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?"**

"I trust Hagrid with my life." Harry, Kira, Lily and the Marauders said. Harry looked at Hermione and Ron. "No offense mate, while I do trust Hagrid, after Aragog. I wouldn´t exactly be following him at a drop of a pin." Ron said. Kira rolled her eyes and looked at he girlfriend. "Don´t make me bring up Gwarp" Hermione said, looking at Kira. Kira smirked.

  
**"I would trust Hagrid with my life," said Dumbledore.**   
**"I'm not saying his heart isn't in the right place," said Professor McGonagall grudgingly, "but you can't pretend he's not careless. He does tend to -- what was that?" A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the street for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky -- and a huge motorcycle fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.**

"My motorcycle!" Sirius exclaimed happily. "How does no one of noticed that?" Hermione asked. "They probably thought it was a normal motorcycle. You know no those that are flying but those who are actually driving on the street." Kira teased her earnign herself another punch in the shoulder.

**If the motorcycle was huge, it was nothing to the man sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild - long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of trash can lids, and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.**   
**"Hagrid," said Dumbledore, sounding relieved. "At last. And where did you get that motorcycle?"**   
**"Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir," said the giant, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he spoke. "Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I've got them sir."**   
**"No problems, were there?"**   
**"No, sir -- house was almost destroyed, but I got them out all right before the Muggles started swarmin' around. They fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."**

"Aww..." Hermione and Ginny cooed while the boys laughed. Kira and Harry both blushed. Kira looked at her Hermione.

**Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall bent forward over the bundles of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy and a baby girl, fast asleep and hugging each other. Under a tuft of jet-black hair over Harry´s forehead they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning. The same was on Kira´s left cheek.**

Hermione kissed the scar on Kira´s let cheek. Kira smiled at her.

**"Is that where -." whispered Professor McGonagall.**   
**"Yes," said Dumbledore. "They'll have that scar forever."**   
**"Couldn't you do something about it, Dumbledore?"**   
**"Even if I could, I wouldn't. Scars can come in handy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground.**

"Do you really? Fred quickly interjected. When Dumbledore nodded he and George exchanged glances.  
"Wicked." They chorused.

**Well -- give them here, Hagrid -- we'd better get this over with." Dumbledore took Harry in his arms while Professor McGonagall took Kira in her arms and turned toward the Dursleys' house.**   
**"Could I -- could I say good-bye to them, sir?" asked Hagrid. He bent his great, shaggy head over Harry and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. The same with kira Then, suddenly, Hagrid let out a howl like a wounded dog.**

**"Shhh!" hissed Professor McGonagall, "you'll wake the Muggles!"**   
**"S-s-sorry," sobbed Hagrid, taking out a large, spotted handkerchief and burying his face in it. "But I c-c-can't stand it -- Lily an' James dead -- an' poor little Harry an' Kira off ter live with Muggles -"**

"Tell us about it," Kira said and Snape narrowed his eyes at her. Kira noticed this and glared at him.

**"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid, or we'll be found," Professor McGonagall whispered, patting Hagrid gingerly on the arm as Dumbledore stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door.**

  
**He laid Harry gently on the doorstep. He took Kira from McGonagall and laid her next to him, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Harry's blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Hagrid's shoulders shook, Professor McGonagall blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from Dumbledore's eyes seemed to have gone out.**

Harry shuddered slightly. Hermione glared at Dumbledore. Kira noticed it and put her hand over Hermiones. James tensed when the twinkling leaves Dumbledore's eyes then it´s a bad sign.

**"Well," said Dumbledore finally, "that's that. We've no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations."**   
**"Yeah," said Hagrid in a very muffled voice, "I'll be takin' Sirius his bike back.**

**G'night, Professor McGonagall -- Professor Dumbledore, sir." Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Hagrid swung himself onto the motorcycle and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.**

  
**"I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor McGonagall," said Dumbledore, nodding to her. Professor McGonagall blew her nose in reply.**

**Dumbledore turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took out the silver Put-Outer. He clicked it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundles of blankets on the step of number four. "Good luck, Harry and Kira," he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone**.

"You left them on the doorstep?!" Hermione yelled at the Headmaster. "What were you thinking?!" "Hermione it´s okay-" Kira tried to calm her down. "No! It is not okay Kira." She said and looked at Kira with tears in her eyes."It was the end of November you and Harry were just wrapped in blanket. You were probably freezing there in the cold." Hermione said. Kira hugged her. "It´s okay. I know that our headmaster is a completely idiotic. But the fact is that I am okay and Harry is okay too. As you see we are both healthy and alive. You can kill our headmaster when we finished reading all the seven book.s" Kira said comforting Hermione. Hermione cried a little into Kiras shoulder. Kira glared at the Headmaster.

**A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he and his sister slept on, not knowing they were special, not knowing they were famous, not knowing they would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs. Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that they would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley... They couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry and Potter -- the boy who lived!".**

"That is the end of the first chapter," Dumbledore said. "Who would like to read next?"  
"I will." Professor McGonagall said, taking the book from Dumbledore. She flipped to the appropriate page and cleared her throat.

 


	2. “Chapter Two: The Vanishing Glass”

“Chapter Two: The Vanishing Glass” McGonagall began to read.

**Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew and niece on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-coloured bonnets –**

  
"Large pink beach ball? Do they mean Dudley?" Kira said. Several people started to laugh and McGonagall waited until all the snickers had died down before continuing.

**but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that other kids were lived in the house, too.**

“And why is that?” Remus demanded in a cool tone that scared Harry more than if he had yelled. Everyone except the Slytherins was glaring slightly at the book.

**Yet Harry Potter and his were still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. Their Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.**   
**"Up! Get up! Now!"**   
**Harry woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.**   
**"Up!" she screeched. Harry heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying motorcycle in it. He had a funny feeling he'd had the same dream before. Kira who was laying next to him was awake too.**

“Have to tell you Harry –” Fred began

“ – the reason for that is because –” George continued

“You have,” They said in unison.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Thanks, guys, but I already know that now.”

**His aunt was back outside the door.**   
**"Are you up yet?" she demanded.**   
**"Nearly," said Harry.**   
**"Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the bacon. And don't you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Duddy's birthday."**

“How often did they make you cook?” Lily asked in a tone that matched Remus’.

“Not often. Only a few times really,” Harry answered quickly. Hermione narrowed her eyes and looked at Kira. Kira winced"Since when we were strong enough to hold a pan." She answered. Hermione hugged her. Lily took a deep breath.

**Harry groaned.**   
**"What did you say?" his aunt snapped through the door.**   
**"Nothing, nothing..."**   
**Dudley's birthday -- how could he have forgotten? Harry got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Harry and Kira were used to spiders,**

Ron shivered. “Did you have to mention the spiders?” He asked.

Fred and George grinned but quickly winced when Ginny smacked both of them on the back of the head. “Ow! Ginny!”

**because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them,**

“What does that have to do with anything?” Hermione wondered. Kira paled a little.

**and that was where they slept.**

“WHAT?!” Everyone exclaimed. Before Harry could blink, both Remus, Sirius, Lily, James and McGonagall were in front of Dumbledore.

"YOU´RE TELLING ME THEY BOTH HAVE BEEN SLEEPING IN A CUPBOARD AND YOU DIDN´T KNEW THAT?" Lily, James, Sirius and Remus yelled at the same time. Unlike Remus, McGonagall had no reservations about yelling. “ALBUS DUMBLEDORE! YOU SAID THAT HE WOULD BE WELL LOOKED AFTER BY THOSE MUGGLES!” She yelled.

Everyone else’ protests had died down as they watched the two Professor’s yell at the Headmaster. Kira had other problems. Hermione hadn´t said a word she just sits emotionless and with a cold look. "Why didn´t you told me?" She asked."I thought it wasn´t that important." Kira said quietly. Hermione took a deep breath and laid her head on Kira's shoulders.  
By that time, Dumbledore had said something that seemed to have placated Sirius, Lily, James, Remus and McGonagall enough for them to sit down, but every one of them was still shooting glares at the headmaster every so often.

**When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Dudley's birthday presents. It looked as though Dudley had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing bike. Exactly why Dudley wanted a racing bike was a mystery to Harry, as Dudley was very fat and hated exercise -- unless of course, it involved punching somebody.**

“He’d had better not mean you,” Ginny said. Hermione tightened her arms around Kira.

**Dudley's favourite punching bags were Kira and Harry,**

Ginny started muttering what sounded like various curses under her breath. Hermione muttered something like going to kill this big fat ass with his ugly parents. Kira paled a little.

**but he couldn't often catch them. Harry didn't look like it, but he was very fast. Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.**

Remus shook his head. “No that’s just the way your father was. He didn’t really fill out until about our sixth year. I think that helped his chances with Lily.” Sirius nodded.

“So they were both scrawny gits?” Fred asked. Remus and Sirius chuckled but nodded. James smirked at this slightly.

**He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Dudley's, and Dudley was about four times bigger than he was. Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes.**

“Just like James, except for the eyes, Lily’s eyes,” Sirius sighed, looking at his brother and sister. James grinned proudly. Lily shook her head and hoped that Harry wouldn´t be such a Jerk and Prankster like his father was.

**He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape**

“Why?” Ron asked him.

**because of all the times, Dudley had punched him on the nose.**

“Ah.”

**The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning.**

“You liked it?” Neville asked curiously. As long as he had known Harry, he seemed to hate the scar.

“Yeah, but that was before I knew what it represented. At the time, I liked it because it made me different.”

**His sister Kira looked different. She had long red hair and brown eyes. She didn´t need glasses. She was skinny but slightly taller than Harry. She wore the clothes from the daughter of the neighbourhood. She had the same scar on her left cheek**

  
"You look like Lily but you have your father's eyes," Remus said. Hermione kissed Kiras left cheek.

**They had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question they could ever remember asking their Aunt Petunia was how they had gotten it.**   
**"In the car crash when your parents died," she had said. "And don't ask questions."**

“Car crash?” Sirius asked. His hands were clenched and it appeared that he was speaking through gritted teeth. “They didn’t even tell you how your parents died?” Harry nodded sadly. Kira tensed again. Hermione rubbed her back. James and Lily were both trying to calm themselves down.

**Don't ask questions -- that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys.**

“But how were you supposed to learn?” Luna asked.

“I think the point was so that I wouldn’t,” Harry mused.

**Uncle Vernon entered the kitchen as Harry was turning over the bacon.**   
**"Comb your hair!" he barked, by way of a morning greeting.**   
**About once a week, Uncle Vernon looked over the top of his newspaper and**   
**shouted that Harry needed a haircut. Harry must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way --all over the place.**

“Curse of the Potter’s that is,” Remus said nodding at Harry’s unruly black hair. He noticed that Ginny too was staring at Harry. “That and marrying redheads or smart knowing all,” he added under his breath and Hermione smirked. Kira rolled her eyes blushing. James and Lily looked at each other smiling. Raven frowned a little.

**Harry was frying eggs by the time Dudley arrived in the kitchen with his**   
**mother. Dudley looked a lot like Uncle Vernon. He had a large pink face, not much neck, small, watery blue eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on his thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Dudley looked like a baby angel -- Harry often said that Dudley looked like a pig in a wig.**

“We’ll corrupt you yet!” Fred said in between fits of laughter.

“Yeah, by the time we’re done with you, you might be worthy of the Mauraders!” George added.  
"Oh, he better be!" James said grinning. "He better not," Lily muttered looking at Harry and Kira. "Don´t worry mom. Harry is too much of a pessimist to be a Marauder." Kira said blushing for the first time she called someone mom. Lily grinned happily.

**Harry put the plates of egg and bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn't much room. Dudley, meanwhile, was counting his presents. His face fell.**   
**"Thirty-six," he said, looking up at his mother and father. "That's two less than last year."**

“Spoiled brat,” Professor Sprout muttered to McGonagall who nodded in agreement. "Even I don´t get that much presents," Draco said suddenly. "And I thought we were spoiled." His sister Raven said. Their parents nodded (well at least Narzissa did). "Neither I did," James said honestly. Snape glared at that.

**"Darling, you haven't counted Auntie Marge's present, see, it's here under this big one from Mommy and Daddy."**   
**"All right, thirty-seven then," said Dudley, going red in the face.**   
**Harry, who could see a huge Dudley tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his bacon as fast as possible in case Dudley turned the table over. Kira glared at him.**   
**Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, "And we'll buy you another two presents while we're out today. How's that, Popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?''**   
**Dudley thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally, he said slowly, "So I'll have thirty ... thirty..."**

“He can’t even do simple math!” Flitwick exclaimed.

**"Thirty-nine, sweetums," said Aunt Petunia.**   
**"Oh." Dudley sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. "All right then."**   
**Uncle Vernon chuckled. "Little tyke wants his money's worth, just like his father. 'Atta boy, Dudley!" He ruffled Dudley's hair.**

“Again, he is encouraging that?” Sprout asked out loud.

**At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry, Kira and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.**   
**"Bad news, Vernon," she said. "Mrs Figg's broken her leg. She can't take them." She jerked her head in Harry's and Kira´s direction.**

“Did they always talk about you like that?” Ron asked.  
Harry thought about it. “Majority of the time. Though there were a few times when they actually said my name.”

**Dudley's mouth fell open in horror, but Harry's heart gave a leap. Every year on Dudley's birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hamburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Harry and Kira were left behind with Mrs Figg, a mad old lady who lived two streets away. Harry hated it there. The whole house smelled of cabbage and Mrs Figg made them look at photographs of all the cats she'd ever owned.**

“I didn’t know why I was looking at pictures of the same cats every single time.”

**"Now what?" said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Harry and Kira as though they'd planned this. Harry knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs Figg had broken her leg, but it wasn't easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at Tibbles, Snowy, Mr Paws, and Tufty again. As though Kira could read his thoughts. She hit him across the head.**

Some were snickered at this

**"We could phone Marge," Uncle Vernon suggested.**   
**"Don't be silly, Vernon, she hates the children"**

“The feeling’s mutual,” Harry said.

“Wasn’t she the one –” Ron began but Harry cut him off.

“We’ll get to that.”

**The Dursleys often spoke about them like this, as though they weren't there -- or rather, as though they were something very nasty that couldn't understand them, like a slug.**   
**"What about whats-her-name, your friend -- Yvonne?"**   
**"On vacation in Majorca," snapped Aunt Petunia.**   
**"You could just leave us here," Harry put in hopefully (he'd be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Dudley's computer). Kira rolled her eyes at this.**

“Nice try Harry,” Ginny told him.

**Aunt Petunia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon.**

“So her normal expression then,” Snape said, a little bit louder than he thought. He couldn’t believe that Potter hadn’t had the spoiled life he had imagined… In fact, Potter’s childhood almost reminded him of his own, and that was not a good thing. "Agree," Lily said not bothering even looking at him.

**"And come back and find the house in ruins?" she snarled.**  
 **"We won't blow up the house," said Harry, but they weren't listening.**  
 **"I suppose we could take them to the zoo," said Aunt Petunia slowly, "...and leave them in the car....** "

“That’s illegal!” Hermione said.

“They´re not dogs!” Neville said at the same time. Sirius looked offended but didn´t say anything (probably because Lily was glaring at him)

**"That car's new, they´re not sitting in it alone...."Dudley began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn't really crying -- it had been years since he'd really cried -- but he knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything he wanted.**   
**"Dinky Duddydums,**

Everyone burst into laughter after that one. And just when the laughter would stop, one of the children would look at another and it would begin again. Finally, the calmed down enough for McGonagall to continue.

**don't cry, Mummy won't let them spoil your special day!" she cried, flinging her arms around him.**

“Did they fit?” Ron asked.

“It was only around his neck, and it was pretty close,” Harry informed him.

**"I... don't... want... them... t-t-to come!" Dudley yelled between huge, pretend sobs. "They always sp- spoils everything!" He shot Harry a nasty grin through the gap in his mother's arms. Earning himself a glare from Kira.**   
**Just then, the doorbell rang -- "Oh, good Lord, they're here!" said Aunt Petunia frantically -- and a moment later, Dudley's best friend, Piers Polkiss, walked in with his mother. Piers was a scrawny boy with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held people's arms behind their backs while Dudley hit them. Dudley stopped pretending to cry at once.**   
**Half an hour later, Harry and his sister, who couldn't believe their luck, were sitting in the back of the Dursleys' car with Piers and Dudley, on the way to the zoo for the first time in their life.**

“Really?” Hermione asked sadly, and she sighed when Harry nodded. Kira leaned more into her. Lily shook her head in disbelieve. James growled. Draco started to feel guilty about how he treated them he had no idea that their childhood was.. so sad. Raven noticed it and wrapped an arm around him.

**His aunt and uncle hadn't been able to think of anything else to do with them, but before they'd left, Uncle Vernon had taken both of them aside.**   
**"I'm warning you," he had said, putting his large purple face right up close to Harry's, "I'm warning you now, boy -- any funny business, anything at all -- and you'll be in that cupboard from now until Christmas." He shivered at Kira's glare but pretend to ignore it.**

Remus growled. “He didn’t dare to do that!" Lily yelled. Ignoring the fact that almost every Student shuddered at the image of Kira's glare.

“Relax m-mom, most of the things he said were empty threats.” Harry tried to reassure her Lily caught the almost in Harry’s statement.

**"We´re not going to do anything," said Harry, "honestly…”**   
**But Uncle Vernon didn't believe him. No one ever did except for Kira.**   
**The problem was, strange things often happened around them and it was just no good telling the Dursleys they didn't make them happen.**   
**Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left "to hide that horrible scar." She did also cut Kira's hair but only as short so that you couldn´t see her scar. Dudley had laughed himself silly at them, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where they were already laughed at for their baggy clothes and Harrys taped glasses. Next morning, however, they had gotten up to find their hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. They had been given a week in their cupboard for this, even though they had tried to explain that they couldn't explain how it had grown back so quickly.**

“Cutting the hair never works. It’s like a hedge,” Remus said in a mock wise tone. Hermione put her hand through Kira's red locks. Kira was trying really hard not to blush.

**Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Dudley's (brown with orange puff balls)**

Nearly all the witches winced at the description of the sweater.

- **\- The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become until finally, it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished.**

“Good,” Ginny said and everyone nodded.

**On the other hand, he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Dursleys had received a very angry letter from Harry's headmistress telling them Harry had been climbing school buildings. But all he'd tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Vernon through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Harry supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.**

“Harry…you apparated,” Hermione said in a faint voice.

“No, I think I just flew,” Harry mused.

**Petunia should have known that was accidental magic, after all, Lily did nearly the same thing, Lily thought.**   
**But Kira had it worse than him. Dudley´s gang was also chasing after her. She stopped running and turned around. As Dudley and his gang came closer they´ve been pushed away by something. Vernon beat her and throw her into the cellar.**

  
"WHAT?" almost everyone screamed. "I didn´t even know that," Harry said shocked and angry at the same time. Kira looked away almost embarrassed. "It´s not important" she whispered. "Yes, it is!" Hermione snapped at her." He hurt you." She said then in a much softer voice. Kira gave her a sad smile. The cups were shaking in front of Lily and James but James put his hand on top of Lilys to calm her down,

  
**But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Dudley and Piers to be spending the day somewhere that wasn't school, his cupboard, or Mrs Figg's cabbage-smelling living room.**   
**While he drove, Uncle Vernon complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Harry, Kira, the council, Harry, Kira, the bank, and Harry were just a few of his favourite subjects.**

“Wow Harry, he sure loves to talk about you and Kira!” George beamed.

**This morning, it was motorcycles.**   
**"... roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums," he said, as a motorcycle overtook them.**   
**“I had a dream about a motorcycle," said Harry, remembering suddenly. "It**   
**was flying." Kira facepalmed.**

There was a collective groan.

“Harry, why can't you keep your mouth shut?” Hermione moaned.

“Because otherwise, he wouldn’t be Harry?” Ron guessed than shrank back at the look his best friend and his sister sent him.

**Uncle Vernon nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Harry, his face like a gigantic beet with a moustache: "MOTORCYCLES DON'T FLY!"**

**Dudley and Piers sniggered.**   
**“I know they don't," said Harry. "It was only a dream."**   
**But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the Dursleys hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon -- they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.**

“No, you both do that on your own,” Ron said. Hermione nodded ignoring Kira's soft glare. and Remus, Sirius, James and Lily looked at her.

“Do I want to know?” Lily asked.

She shook her head. “But you’ll find out.”  
Lily groaned frustrated

**It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Dursleys bought Dudley and Piers large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then because the smiling lady in the van had asked Harry and Kira what they wanted before they could hurry them away, they bought them cheap lemon ice pops. It wasn't bad, either, Harry thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Dudley, except that it wasn't blond.**

Fred and George laughed at that and had a spark in their eyes that made Harry think there would be a new prank coming soon.

  
**He whispered his thought to Kira. Kira gasped." Harry how dare you insult this poor animal. There is no creature that is more stupid than him." She said smirking slightly.**

  
Everyone burst out laughing.

  
**Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He and his sister were careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favourite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Dudley had a tantrum because of his knickerbockers**

“His what?” Neville asked.

“Muggle treats,” Hermione answered.

**glory didn't have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Vernon bought him another one and Harry and Kira were both allowed to finish the first. Kira felt, afterwards, that she should have known it was all too good to last. After lunch, they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Dudley and Piers wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Dudley quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Vernon's car and crushed it into a trash can -- but at the moment it didn't look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.**   
**Dudley stood with his nose pressed against the glass, staring at the**   
**glistening brown coils.**   
**"Make it move," he whined at his father. Uncle Vernon tapped on the glass, but the snake didn't budge.**   
**"Do it again," Dudley ordered. Uncle Vernon rapped the glass smartly with his knuckles, but the snake just snoozed on. "Stop it! Don´t you see it´s sleeping." Kira snapped at him.**   
**"This is boring," Dudley moaned. He shuffled away.**   
**Harry moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He**   
**wouldn't have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself – no company except stupid people drumming their fingers on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.**

“That is a very optimistic way of looking at it Harry,” Luna said and most people looked around, having forgotten about her.

**The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Harry's.**   
**It winked.**

  
**Harry stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anyone was watching. They weren't. He looked back at the snake and winked, too. Kira who was standing next to him winked, too.**

“Harry, you are not supposed to wink back at a snake,” Ginny groaned. "Actually he wasn´t the only one who winked back at the snake," Kira said. "Yes, but you have a girlfriend who can explain to you why it´s not good to wink at snakes," Ginny said. Kira looked at Hermione. She only shook her head." Nah I think you smart enough to know that." Hermione said.

**The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Vernon and Dudley, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave them a look that said quite plainly:**   
**"I get that all the time.”**   
**"I know," Harry murmured through the glass, though he wasn't sure the snake could hear him. "It must be really annoying."**

“And now you’re talking to it. Didn’t you find that weird at all?” Ginny continued.

Harry shrugged. “I was ten, lonely, and used to weird stuff happening.”  
"You´re both a parselmouths? But how no in the Potter family was one?" James asked confused.  
"Don´t worry d-dad. You´ll find it out in the books." Kira said. James smiled at her.  
Lucius and Narcissa tensed knowing the reason behind it.

**The snake nodded vigorously.**   
**"Where do you come from, anyway?" Kira asked.**   
**The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Harry and Kira peered at it.**   
**Boa Constrictor, Brazil.**   
**"Was it nice there?"**   
**The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Harry read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. "Oh, I see -- so you've never been to Brazil?"**

“You were talking to a snake about Brazil?” Remus asked faintly. “And you never thought to mention this to anyone?” Harry shrugged.

**As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Harry and Kira made both of**   
**them jump. "DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"**   
**Dudley came waddling toward them as fast as he could.**

Fred and George snickered.

**"Out of the way, you," he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell with Kira who was trying to catch him, hard on the concrete floor.**

  
**Lily glared at the book.**

  
**What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened -- one second, Piers and Dudley were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.**   
**Harry sat up and gasped while Kira smirked; the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. People throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.**   
**As the snake slid swiftly past him, Harry could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, "Brazil, here I come... Thanksss, amigo." Kira chuckled.**   
**The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.**   
**"But the glass," he kept saying, "where did the glass go?"**   
**The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Piers and Dudley could only gibber. As far as Harry had seen, the snake hadn't done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Vernon's car, Dudley was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Piers was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Harry and Kira at least, was Piers calming down enough to say, "Harry and Kira were talking to it, weren't you, Harry?"**

Again there was a collective groan from everyone. Hermione had a murderous look in her eyes.

**Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on them. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go -- cupboard -- stay -- no meals," before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.**   
**Harry and Kira lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. Harry didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the Dursleys were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.**

“Smart,” McGonagall said and she gave Harry and Kira a rare smile, although it was a rather tight one.

**He'd lived with the Dursleys almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and their parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when their parents had died. Sometimes, when Harry strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green light and a burning pain on his forehead.**

“That’s more than you should have to remember,” Remus said sadly and Harry shifted uncomfortably, thinking about what they would say when they reached his third year and heard what he did whenever a Dementor was near. James and Lily paled.

  
**Kira mentioned though that she often saw a red hair coloured Woman in her dreams.**

Some people gasped at this. Lily stood up and set next to Kira.

  
**This, Harry supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the green light came from. They couldn't remember their parents at all. Their aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course, they were forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.**   
**When he had been younger, Harry had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened;**

“Believe me, Harry, I tried,” Remus said sadly. “If it wasn’t for some rather ridiculous laws –” He said. “I would have taken you away from there.”

“Thanks, Remus,” Harry said, giving the man a grateful smile. "But why didn´t Sirius took them?" James asked and Lily nodded. Sirius winced. "You will find it out in the third book." Kira simply said.

**the Dursleys were their only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him and his sister. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Dudley.**

“Diggle,” McGonagall sighed.

**After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Harry tried to get a closer look.**

“Of course, they didn’t want to be caught,” Ron said.

**At school, Harry and Kira had no one. Everybody knew that Dudley's gang hated that odd Harry and Kira Potter in their baggy old clothes and Harry´s in broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Dudley's gang.**

“That’s the end of the chapter,” McGonagall said, closing the book after marking the page. “Who would like to continue?”

“I will!” Flitwick said in his high voice. He levitated the book down the table to where he was sitting before settling down in his chair.

**“CHAPTER THREE: THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE”** Flitwick read in his high voice.


	3. Chapter Three: Letters From No One

**CHAPTER THREE: THE LETTERS FROM NO ONE”** Flitwick read in his high voice.

**The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started**

“When was Dudley’s birthday Harry?” Lily asked.

“Er…late May?” Harry answered, seeing the anger flash in, Sirius´, Remus’, James´, Lily's eyes. They all took a deep calming breath and forcibly turned his attention back to Flitwick.

**and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control aeroplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.**

  
"Wow, and I thought Draco was terrible with breaking his stuff. " Raven said. "Hey, I´m not doing this on purpose," Draco said. "I hope so," Narcissa said stern. "That´s the point Draco," Raven said

  
**Harry and Kira were glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader.**

“Do you know, that actually makes sense?” Neville said in a sarcastic tone, earning him a few surprised looks. "So basically it's like making Crap and Gayle the leader of your trio," Raven said. Some snickered at the names she gave them. Draco chuckled a little. "You mean Crabbe and Goyle." He said. "That´s what I just said." She countered.

**The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favourite sport:**

“Why do I have the feeling that that has something to do with you ?” Hermione asked. Kira lay her head on Hermione's shoulder.

  
**Potter Hunting.**

 

“You’re a Seer Hermione,” Ron teased, Hermione and Kira glared at him.

**This was why Harry and Kira spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where they could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came they would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in their lives, they wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. Piers Polkiss was going there too. Harry and Kira, on the other hand, we're going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny.**

**"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Harry. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"**  
"No, thanks," said Harry. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it -- it might be sick."

“That would be Lily´s cheek Harry,” Remus told him. Sirius, James and a few of the teachers nodded.

**Then he ran before Dudley could work out what he'd said.**

  
**Kira laughed at this as Harry told her about this.**

  
**One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Harry at Mrs Figg's. Mrs Figg wasn't 't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let them watch television and gave them a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years.**

All of the children shuddered at that, except for Ron who seemed shocked at the description of food going bad.

**That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters.**

“Oh, the horror!” George cried, clutching his heart while Fred and Ron laughed. Ginny and Hermione were wincing at the description of the uniform.

**They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.**

  
**As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Harry didn't trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh. Kira was hiding her smirk behind her fist while pretending to cough.**

Harry had no such reservations now and was laughing along with the twins, Raven and Kira.

**There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Harry and Kira went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. They went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in grey water.**   
**"What's this?" he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question.**

“Oh, Harry! How dare you ask a question!” Fred and George mocked.

**"Your new school uniform," she said.**   
**Harry looked in the bowl again.**   
**"Oh," Kira said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet."**

“I guess you both have Lily's cheek.,” Remus muttered with a small smile on his face.

**"Don’t be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things grey for Harry. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished."**   
**Harry seriously doubted this but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Stonewall High -- like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably. Kira was laughing at him not even bothering to hide it.**

“You were laughing because you didn´t have to wear your cousin's elephant skin?" Raven asked her amusingly. "Yep. Thank god for the clothes from the daughter of the neighbourhood were much better. Otherwise, I would be probably wearing my aunts' old things... And then I think I probably wouldn´t find this so funny." Kira said.

**Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Harry's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.**   
**They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.**   
**"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.**

“He actually made his son do something?” Sprout whispered to McGonagall.

**"Make Harry get it."**   
**"Get the mail, Harry."**

“Never mind then,” Sprout said.

**"Make Dudley get it."**   
**"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."**   
**Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Thankfully his aunt and uncle didn´t see Kira taking the Stick away from him and smacking him on top of his head.**

Everyone laughed at this. Yep, this is definitely something Kira would do.

  
**Four things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and -- two letters for Harry and Kira.**   
**Harry picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him or his sister. Who would?**

“Only half the wizarding world!” Ron said. Then, with a smirk on his face, “And Ginny.”

Ginny blushed a beet red. “Ron!”  
Raven frowned again. Kira noticed this and glared at Ron.

**They had no friends, no other relatives -- Harry didn't belong to the library,**

Hermione, Remus, and a few teachers winced at that.

  
**and Kira never forgot to bring back the books.**   
**so they'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:**

  
**Mr H. PotterThe Cupboard under the Stairs**   
**4 Privet Drive**   
**Little Whinging**   
**Surrey**

“That is why we should stop using those self addressing quills!” McGonagall shouted at Dumbledore, who looked properly abashed.

**The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.**   
**Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Harry saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion,**

“Gryffindor!”

**an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H.**

Luna, Flitwick, and Sprout all clapped for their respective houses while Snape remained silent.

**"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke.**

“That was so funny –” Fred began

“That I forgot how to laugh,” George concluded.

**Harry went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, handed Kira her letter and slowly began to open the yellow envelope.**

“Should have opened it in the hall mate,” Ron told Harry.

“Gee Ron, you think?” Harry said sarcastically.

**Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard.**   
**"Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk. --."**   
**"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Harry's and Kira´s got something!"**   
**Harry was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon. Kira slapped Uncle Vernon's hand. But her letter was still jerked out of her hand by aunt Petunia.**   
**"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.**   
**"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.**   
**"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped.**   
**Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.**

**"Vernon! Oh my goodness -- Vernon!"**   
**They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry, Kira and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.**

“Man! Mum would never let us get away with doing that!” Fred complained.

“Neither would Gran,” Neville said, wincing as he thought about what his Gran would do.  
"No normal person would," Lucius said ignoring the shocking looks.

**"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.**

“ **I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "as it's mine."**  
 **Kira didn´t say anything she only glared at her aunt. She tried to rip the letter of her aunt's hand but her aunt pushed her away.**  
 **"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.**  
 **Harry didn't move. Kira glared at her uncle and her aunt.**

“Here comes the temper!” George called, ignoring Harry’s and Kira´s scowl.

Remus looked thoughtful. “I wonder whose temper you have,” he wondered aloud.

“What do you mean?” Harry asked.

“Well, Lily would get rather…upset shall we say, over even the smallest thing. Whereas James would be able to deal with some things, considering he was best friends with Sirius, but he could only take so much.”

“They both got their mum’s temper.” Nearly everyone in the room echoed, ignoring Harry’s glares. Lily blushed.

**“I WANT MY LETTER!" They both shouted.**   
**"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley.**   
**"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Harry and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, he did the same thing with Kira, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Harry and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Harry, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. Kira rolled her eyes at this.**   
**"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address -- how could they possibly know where they sleep? You don't think they're watching the house?"**   
***]**   
**[*"Watching -- spying -- might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.**

Ginny snorted. “Why would we want to follow you Muggle?” She asked.

“Miss Weasley!” Professor McGonagall snapped, but she seemed to be in agreement with Ginny.  
"I can believe I would ever say that but I agree with you Weasel," Draco said. Raven hit him upside his head. "It´s Weasley, you uncultured idiot. But I also agree with what you said. Weasley." Raven said.

**"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't**   
**want --"**   
**Harry could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen.**   
**"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer... Yes, that's best... we won't do anything....”**   
**"But --"**   
**"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took them in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"**

“Stamp out that dangerous nonsense?” Sirius repeated in a low tone, glaring at Dumbledore. “Were you aware of how deep Petunia’s hatred for both magic and her sister ran sir?” He asked the headmaster.

Dumbledore sighed. “I had hoped that Petunia would be able to reconcile with herself after Lily’s death and treat Harry and Kira fairly.” He admitted.

Both Remus and Snape scoffed. Lily glared at him and James shook his head in disbelieve.

**That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd**   
**never done before; he visited Harry and Kira in their cupboard.**   
**"Where's my letter?" said Harry, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed through the door. "Who's writing to me?"**   
**"No one. it was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. "I have burned it."**   
**"It was not a mistake," said Kira said in a low but angry voice, "it had my cupboard on it."**

  
Every student and teacher shuddered at this. "What´s wrong?" Lily asked. "Nothing. It´s just... Kira doesn´t get angry that easily. She would rather glare at someone then yell or something like this. But if she is using this voice that means she is really angry." Hermione said.

  
**"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders.**

**fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.**

  
"I hope it was really painful," Kira said. "Kira" Lily said even though she agreed with her. "Yes?" Kira asked innocently. Lily only shook her head smiling.

  
**"Er -- yes, Harry -- Kira--about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking... you're really getting a bit big for it... we think it might be nice if you both moved into Dudley's second bedroom.”**

“Second bedroom?” James growled angry. “You’re telling me that while that…”

“Git,” Fred supplied.  
"Pig of a boy had two Bedrooms." Sirius continued but was cut off by Lily. "My children were sleeping in a cupboard?" She asks the headmaster angry. "You mean our children," James said.

Dumbledore sighed, his eyes downcast. “I assure you James, Lily I had no idea..”

" **Why?" said Harry and Kira at the same time.**  
 **"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now." The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Harry and Kira one trip upstairs to move everything they owned from the cupboard to this room. They sat down on the bed and Harry stared around him. Nearly everything here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbour's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favourite program had been cancelled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched.**  
 **From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, “I don't want them in there... I need that room... make them get out...."**

 

**Harry sighed and stretched out on the bed lying next to Kira who was already sleeping... Yesterday he'd have given anything to be up here. Today he'd rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.**

  
**[*]**   
**Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and he still didn't have his room back. Harry was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly. Kira only rolled her eyes at him.**

 

**When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Harry, made Dudley go and get it. They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Mr. H. Potter Ms K. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive --'"**   
**With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Harry and Kira right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. Kira only looked at this amusingly.**

  
"You are really ice cold do you know that, Kira?" Fred asked chuckling. Kira shrugged. "She got it from you, Lily," James said ignoring Lily's glare. "Sometimes the Slytherin side of you both are looking out. "Dumbledore said. "Actually Kira is sometimes colder and more Savage than any other Slytherin I know," Raven said shocking everyone. "Especially if you hurt or insult people she cares about. "Draco mumbled remembering the second year and the third.  
“What is it with you and grabbing things larger than you from behind?” Ron wondered, obviously thinking about the Troll they had encountered in the first year.

**After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Harry's and Kira´s letter clutched in his hand.**   
**"Go to your cupboard -- I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Harry. "Dudley -- go -- just go."**   
**Harry walked round and round his new room. Kira sat on the bed watching him amusingly. Someone knew they had moved out of their cupboard and they seemed to know they hadn't received their first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time he'd make sure they didn't fail. He had a plan.**

Fred, George, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, and even Neville groaned.

“What? My plans aren’t that bad!” Harry said in defence.

“No offence mate, but they kind of are,” Ron said. "Kira is the one who has better plans. That actually works." Kira smirked at Harry.

**The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Harry turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn't wake the Dursleys. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.**   
**He was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door –**   
**“AAAAARRRGH!”**   
**Harry leapt into the air; he'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat -- something alive!**   
**Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror, Harry realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle's face.**

“Go, Harry!” Fred exclaimed, reaching over to give Harry a high five.

**Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Harry didn't do exactly what he'd been trying to do. He shouted at Harry for about half an hour and then told him to go and make**   
**a cup of tea. Harry shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, Kira came downstairs too and the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Harry could see three letters addressed in green ink.**   
**“I want --" he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.**

  
***]**   
**[*Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.**   
**"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up."**   
**"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon."**   
**"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.**

  
**On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Harry and Kira. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.**   
**Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises.**

  
**On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Harry and Kira found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor.**   
**"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Harry in amazement. "Probably some people who are definitely smarter than you. And who actually cares about us." Kira said**

  
Everyone chuckled at this. Hermione smiled and kissed Kira on top of her hair.

**On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy.**   
**"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully**

“Not for wizards!” Ron and Ginny sang.

**as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today --"**   
**Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Harry leapt into the air trying to catch one.**

“Ah the young seekers' skills are already building,” George said in admiration.

“Why not just grab one off the floor Harry?” Neville asked.

“You guys do realize that this was almost five years ago right?” Harry pointed out and they shrugged.

  
**Kira rolled her eyes and grabbed on off the floor.**

  
"Well, Harry your sister was smarter than you even five years ago and she still is." George is. Harry blushed and Kira smirked.

  
**"Out! OUT!"**   
**Uncle Vernon seized Harry around the waist and threw him into the hall. He jerked Kira´s letter out of her hands as she was about to open their cupboard so that she can hide in there. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.**   
**"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his moustache at the same time.**

Quite a few people snickered at the image being produced.

**“I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"**   
**He looked so dangerous with half his moustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him around the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag.**

“Is he really that stupid?” Hermione wondered.

“Yes, love yes he is,” Kira told her.

**They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while.**

  
***]**   
**[*"Shake'em off... shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this.**   
**They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall, Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.**   
**Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Harry shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Harry and Kira stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering...**

“Wondering what?” Ginny asked gently.

Harry shrugged. “This was a long time ago, I don’t really remember.”

**They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table.**   
**"'Scuse me, but is one of you Mr H. Potter? And Ms.K.Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk."**   
**She held up two letters so they could read the green ink address:**   
**Mr H. Potter**   
**Room 17**   
**Railview Hotel**   
**Cokeworth**   
**Ms.K.Potter**   
**Room 17**   
**Railview Hotel**   
**Cokesworth**   
**Harry made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked his hand out of the way. Kira rolled her eyes and shook her head. The woman stared.**   
**"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.**   
**“Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a ploughed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.**   
**"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that**   
**afternoon.**

“Hate to tell you Dud, but daddy went mad a long time ago,” Harry said in a mock pitying tone.

**Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared.**   
**It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley snivelled.**   
**"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television. "**   
**Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday -- and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days the week, because of television -- then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Kira´s and Harry's eleventh birthday.**

  
"Well, more like the twelfth birthday for Kira," Remus said. Kira groaned at this. "Wait, so me and Harry were born on the same date?" She asked suddenly "Yes, you are exactly one year older than him. But you are still born on the same date as him." Lily said.  
“Happy Birthday Harry and Kira!” Fred and George yelled. Hermione kissed Kira´s cheek. "Happy Birthday."She whispered playfully. Kira giggled slightly and laid her head on Hermione's shoulder.

**Of course, their birthdays were never exactly fun -- last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's and Aunt Petunias old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day.**

“Actually,” Hermione began but Kira cut her off.

“I think he knows that, Hermione." She said.

**Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought.**   
**"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!"**   
**It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what**   
**looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.**   
**"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!"**   
**A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-grey water below them.**   
**"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!"**   
**It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.**   
**The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.**   
**Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shrivelled up.**   
**"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully.**   
**He was in a very good mood. Obviously, he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Harry privately agreed though the thought didn't cheer him up at all.**   
**As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few mouldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, Kira and Harry were left to find the softest bit of floor they could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.**

There was a good deal of mumbling going around the room. Hermione didn´t say anything she just kissed Kira´s head and glared at the book.

**The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. They both couldn't sleep. Kira shivered and turned over, snuggling closer to Harry, trying to get comfortable, their stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told them they'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. They lay and watched his birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.**   
**Five minutes to go. Harry heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did.**

“I really don’t know if that’s a pessimistic or optimistic thought,” Hermione stated, looking slightly puzzled.  
"That´s an idiotic thought," Kira said ignoring Harrys glare

**Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that they'd be able to steal one somehow.**   
**Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?**   
**One minute to go and they'd be eleven. Thirty seconds... twenty ... ten... nine --maybe they'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him -- three... two... one...**   
**BOOM.**

A few people jumped, including Neville, who slipped off of his chair but clambered back on with a hand from Luna.

**The whole shack shivered Kira and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.**

“Who is it?” Ginny and Professor Sprout asked at the same time. Harry just smirked at them.

“That’s the end of the chapter,” Flitwick said, marking his place and closing the book. “Who would like to read next?”

“Oh, oh, me! me!” Fred said, jumping up and down in his seat. Flitwick levitated the book over to him and was about to set it down when George nudged Fred so that the book fell on top of his head.

Fred glared at everyone that sniggered before grinning himself and opening the book.


	4. Chapter 4: The Keeper of the Keys.

Before Fred could read the chapter title however, Hagrid entered, his black eyes beaming at all those gathered. Clearing his throat dramatically, Fred readjusted the book before reading.

**"Chapter Four: The Keeper of the Keys**

**BOOM.**

**They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake.**   
**"Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.**

“Is he really that dumb to be dreaming about a canon?” Ron asked.

“Do I need to bring up the tap-dancing spiders Ron?” Harry snickered at his best friend’s mock glare.

 

**There was a crash behind them and Uncle Vernon came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hands -- now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.**

“What!” Hermione exclaimed. “He bought a rifle? He could have seriously hurt you!” Kira hugged her. Lily took a deep breath.

**"Who's there?" he shouted. "I warn you -- I'm armed!"**

George blinked. “Isn’t everyone?”

Hermione sighed. “He meant – oh never mind.”

**There was a pause. Then --**

  
**SMASH!**

  
**The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.**   
**A giant of a man was standing in the doorway.**

“Hagrid!” Both Fred and George exclaimed, looking up at the man, who was grinning proudly. Kira smiled.

**His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.**   
**The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.**

  
**"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..."**

Ron shook his head. “Typical Hagrid.”

**He strode over to the sofa where Dudley sat frozen with fear.**   
**"Budge up, yeh great lump," said the stranger.**

“Brilliant Hagrid!” Fred broke in.

**Dudley squeaked and ran to hide behind his mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Vernon.**   
**"An' here's Harry an´ Kira!" said the giant.**

  
**They both looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile.**   
**"Las' time I saw you, you were only babies," said the giant. "Yeh look a lot like yet dad, but yeh've got yet mom's eyes." "An´ yeh Kira look alot like yet mom, but yeh´ve got yet dad´s eyes."**

“First time I ever heard that,” Harry mumbled. “Certainly not the last,” Kira said.

“If it makes you feel any better Harry, you don’t look exactly like James, there is quite a bit of your mother there as well,” Remus said gently, trying to cheer the boy up.

"But Kira has so much Lily in her that if she didn´t have James' eyes and if I didn´t know that Kira is his daughter. I would´ve thought that this is Lily herself." Sirius said.

The ones that know Lily nodded. Lily and James smiled happily

**Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise.**   
**“I demand that you leave at once, sit!" he said. "You are breaking and entering!"**

  
**"Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune,"**

Again Fred stopped reading as he, George and to everyone's but  Malfoy´s and Kira´s surprise even Raven gave Hagrid a standing ovation.

**said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.**   
**Uncle Vernon made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.**

  
**"Anyway -- Harry an´ Kira," said the giant, turning his back on the Dursleys, "a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here -- I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."**   
**From an inside pocket of his black overcoat, he pulled a slightly squashed box. Harry opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Harry and Kira written on it in green icing.**

“My first birthday cake,” Harry said with a smile, reminiscing. Kira smiled too. "Don´t worry Kira. You will get so much birthday cakes as you want." Hermione whispered to Kira smiling. Kira laughed and kissed her cheek.

**Harry looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, "Who are you?"**

“Manners Harry!” Hermione and Lily scolded. They both looked surprised at each other before smiling. Harry grinned sheepishly.

  
**Kira hit him across the head. "Manners Harry!" She said.**

  
"Well, now I can say that you even think the same," Ron said. Hermione and Kira looked at each other smiling.

  
**The giant chuckled.**   
**"True, I haven't introduced myself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts."**   
**He held out an enormous hand and shook Harry's whole arm and smiled at Kira. "What about that tea then, eh?" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I'd not say no ter summat stronger if yeh've got it, mind."**

“You’d better not have,” McGonagall said sternly, her eyes fixed on Hagrid who shifted under her gaze.

**His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shrivelled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn't see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Harry and Kira felt the warmth wash over them as though they'd sunk into a hot bath.**

  
**The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from**

“Hagrid!” McGonagall said exasperatedly.

At the same time, Ginny asked curiously, “How many pockets do you have Hagrid?”

“Fair few,” Hagrid answered.

**before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Dudley fidgeted a little.**

**Uncle Vernon said sharply, "Don't touch anything he gives you, Dudley."**

  
**The giant chuckled darkly.**   
**"Yet great puddin' of a son don' need fattenin' anymore, Dursley, don' worry."**

There was another round of clapping, and this time Harry, Kira and Ron joined in.

**He passed the sausages to Harry and Kira, who both were so hungry they had never tasted anything so wonderful, but Harry still couldn't take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, "I'm sorry, but I still don't really know who you are."**

Hermione sighed. “At least you apologized.”

**The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.**   
**"Call me Hagrid," he said, "everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts -- yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course.”**

  
**"Er -- no," said Harry.**

 

“Wrong thing to say,” Neville said, shaking his head.

 

**Hagrid looked shocked.**

  
**"Sorry," Kira said quickly.**

  
**"Sorry?" barked Hagrid, turning to stare at the Dursleys, who shrank back into the shadows. "It' s them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yet parents learned it all?"**

  
**"All what?" asked Harry.**

  
**"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thundered.**

**"Now wait jus' one second!" He had leapt to his feet. In his anger, he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Dursleys were cowering against the wall.**   
**"Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that these children -- these children! -- know nothin' abou' -- about ANYTHING?"**

**Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.**   
**"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff."**

***]**   
**[*But Hagrid simply waved his hand and said, "About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."**

“That wasn’t really helpful or clarified you know Hagrid,” Hermione pointed out.

“I was too much in shock, see,” Hagrid said.

**"What world?" Kira asked him.**

  
**Hagrid looked as if he was about to explode.**   
**"DURSLEY!" he boomed.**

  
**Uncle Vernon, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble.** "

 

“Was that supposed to be a spell?” Ginny wondered.

 

**Hagrid stared wildly at Harry and Kira.**   
**"But yeh must know about yet mom and dad," he said. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous."**

  
**"What? My -- my mom and dad weren't famous, were they?" Harry asked.**

 

“You know, most people would ask about their fame first,” Neville pointed out.

“But since when has Harry been most people?” Ron countered.

 

**"Yeh don' know... yeh don' know..." Hagrid ran his fingers through his hair, fixing Harry and Kira with a bewildered stare.**   
**"Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he said finally.**

  
**Uncle Vernon suddenly found his voice.**   
**"Stop!" he commanded. "Stop right there, sit! I forbid you to tell them anything!"**

George snorted. “Like that’ll work.”

 

**A braver man than Vernon Dursley would have quailed under the furious look Hagrid now gave him; when Hagrid spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.**   
**"You never told them? Never told them what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer them? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from them all these years?"**

  
**"Kept what from me?" said Harry eagerly.**

  
**"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yelled Uncle Vernon in panic.**

  
**Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.**

  
**"Ah, go boil yet heads, both of yeh," said Hagrid. "Harry -- yet a wizard." "An´ Kira ..yet a witch."**   
**There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.**

  
**"I’m a what?" gasped Harry. "That's a not very nice thing to say." Kira said.**

 

“Not quite the reaction I was expecting,” Hermione chuckling at Kira´s reaction.

“Well, how did you react?” Harry shot back, grinning triumphantly when Hermione didn’t answer.

  
"My reaction was quite the same," Lily said blushing but smiling at Kira. Kira was beaming happily

 

**"A wizard, o' course an´with Witch I mean that yeh have magic in yeh.," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letters."**

  
**Harry and Kira stretched out their hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr H. Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea and Ms K.Potter, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. They both pulled out the letters and read:**

  
**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

  
**Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE**

**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme**   
**Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

 

  
**Dear Mr Potter,**

  
**We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts**   
**School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all**   
**necessary books and equipment.**

  
**Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.**

**Yours sincerely,**

  
**Minerva McGonagall,**   
**Deputy Headmistress**

 

  
**(Kira´s letter was the same.)**

  
**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

  
**Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE**   
**(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme**   
**Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

  
**Dear Ms Potter,**   
**We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts**   
**School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all**   
**necessary books and equipment.**

  
**Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.**

**Yours sincerely,**   
**Minerva McGonagall,**   
**Deputy Headmistress**

  
“Does the letter ever change?” Remus asked curiously.

Dumbledore shook his head. “Only the headmaster part, or deputy part, and the name.”

 

**Questions exploded inside Harry's head like fireworks and he couldn't decide which to ask first.**

**After a few minutes, he stammered, "What does it mean, they await my owl?"**

 

“Of all the questions,” Ron said shaking his head.

“Hey, everything else made sense; that was the one thing that didn’t!” Harry said, trying to defend his past self.

 

**"Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me," said Hagrid, clapping a hand to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart-horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat, he pulled an owl -- a real, live, rather ruffled-looking owl**

 

Hermione, Kira, Raven, Ginny, and Luna all looked shocked and disgusted.

 

**\-- a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Kira could read upside down:**

  
  
**Dear Professor Dumbledore,**   
**Given Harry and Kira their letters.**   
**Taking them to buy their things tomorrow.**   
**Weather's horrible. Hope you're Well.**   
**Hagrid**

  
**Hagrid rolled up the note, gave it to the owl, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the owl out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was as normal as talking on the telephone.**

 

“Which it is,” George pointed out.

  
**"What does my mark on the hand means? Has it something to with magic, too" Kira asked showing her hand to Hagrid.**

**" Yes, Kira. It´s a soulmate mark. That there will be only one person who has the same mark as yeh and this person will be your soulmate." Hagrid explained smiling.**

  
Everyone looked smiling at Hermione and Kira. But they both didn´t notice because they both were looking at their hand marks with big smiles on their faces.

  
**Kira looked at him.**

  
**Harry realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly before Kira could slap him again.**

  
**"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.**

  
**"He's not going," he said.**

  
**Hagrid grunted.**   
**"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.**

  
**"Excuse me, what is a Muggle?" said Kira, interested.**

  
**"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like thern. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."**

  
**"We swore when we took them in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of them! Wizard and Witch indeed!"**

“That’s it!” Lily exclaimed. “He is not going back to that house, ever!” James growled. Sirius and Remus also growled “I don’t care about the blood protections! Evidently, they didn’t do him much good!” Lily yelled.

Professor McGonagall was nodding in agreement with her former students.

“Err…Professor?” Harry asked, “Is there a minimum amount of time that we have to spend with the Dursleys?”

“A week,” the Headmaster said, nodding as he obviously followed Harry’s train of thought.

Meanwhile, Hermione was looking at Remus anxiously since he was still growling under his breath, and she reached out to try and get him to sit down. When her hand grabbed his sleeve, he turned and Hermione, Kira and Harry were surprised to see bright amber eyes starring back at them. Slowly thought, the gold faded and returned to their normal blue and Remus sat down with a sigh. Hermione put an arm around Kira.

 

**"You knew?" said Harry. "You knew I'm a -- a wizard? and that Kira´s a witch"**

  
**"Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "Knew! Of course, we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that-that school-and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was -- a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"**   
**She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.**

“Probably had,” both Snape and Lily muttered then looked at each other in surprise.

**"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as -- as -- abnormal -- and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!"**

Remus and Sirius growled again at the way Petunia was talking about his best friends. From where he was sitting, Harry heard a few phrases of what seemed to be a muted tirade from Remus including: “Next full moon…stupid Muggles…show them a werewolf…”

**Harry had gone very white.**

**Kira glared at her aunt and as soon as she found her voice she said in an angry voice "Blown**   
**up? You told us they died in a car crash!"**

  
Everyone shuddered at Kiras the image of an angry Kira.

  
***]**   
**[*" CAR CRASH!" roared Hagrid, jumping up so angrily that the Dursleys scuttled back to their corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry and Kira Potter not knowin' their own story when every kid in our world knows their names!"**

 

“And adult as well,” Luna drifted in.

 

**"But why? What happened?" Harry asked urgently.**

  
**The anger faded from Hagrid's face. He looked suddenly anxious.**   
**"I never expected this," he said, in a low, worried voice. "I had no idea when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, Harry, Kira, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh -- but someone’s gotta -- yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowin'."**

  
“It wouldn’t have really mattered,” Harry said shrugging. “Anyone would have been able to tell us.”

**He threw a dirty look at the Dursleys.**   
**"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh -- mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it...."**   
**He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, "It begins, I suppose, with -- with a person called -- but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows --"**

  
**"Who? "**

“Well that’s part of it, Harry,” George said as though talking to a young child.

 

**"Well -- I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."**

  
**"Why not?"**

  
**"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went... bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was..."**   
**Hagrid gulped, but no words came out.**

“Good luck trying to get him to say it, Harry, we tried for nearly seven years,” Remus said.

**"Could you write it down?" Kira suggested.**

  
**"Nah -can't spell it. All right -- Voldemort. "**

“He said it,” Remus said in surprise, and then turned to Hagrid. “What about all the times we tried to get you to say his name?” Hagrid merely shrugged.

**Hagrid shuddered. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this -- this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too -- some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, Harry, Kira. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches... terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him -- an' he killed 'em. Horribly.**

**One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.**   
**"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day!**

Remus quietly chuckled at that statement. The irony of that year when the past two James had teased him on being a Prefect, only to be chosen as Head Boy had been priceless. James and Sirius chuckled loudly at this.

**Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before... probably knew they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.**   
**"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em... maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You were just a year old.**

**He came ter yer house an' -- an' --"**

Everyone had a grave look on their face and in some cases, such as Snape, Sirius and Remus, looked rather ill. Hermione and Lily had their arms around Kira while the Marauders had their arms around Harry. Narcissa and Lucius looked at each other both tensed and pale.

Hagrid suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

  
**"Sorry," he said. "But it's that sad -- knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find -- anyway..."**

  
**"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then -- an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing -- he tried to kill you both, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then.**

_But I’m sure you know why_ Harry thought with a glance at Dumbledore.

 

**But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh -- took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even -- but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous, Harry. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age -- the McKinnons, the Bones,**

Susan Bones winced at the mention of her family members who had died at Voldemort’s hand.

 

**the Prewetts**

 

Now it was the Weasley’s turn to wince as they thought about their uncles, especially the older ones who actually remembered their mother’s brothers.

 

**\-- an' you were only babies, an' you lived."**

  
**Something very painful was going on in Kira's mind. As Hagrid's story came to a close, she saw again the blinding flash of green light, more clearly than she had ever remembered it before -- and she remembered something else, for the first time in her life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.**

“You shouldn’t have to remember even that,” McGonagall said with a sigh. Hermione tightened her arms around her.

 

**Hagrid was watching her sadly.**   
**"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore's orders. Brought yeh ter this lot..."**

  
**"Load of old tosh," said Uncle Vernon. Harry jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Dursleys were there.**

 

“So had I,” George admitted and Neville and Ginny nodded.

 

**Uncle Vernon certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Hagrid and his fists were clenched.**

  
**"Now, you listen here, kids," he snarled, "I accept there's something strange about both you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured -- and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion -- asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types -- just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end --".**

 

**But at that moment, Hagrid leapt from the sofa and drew a battered pink umbrella from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Vernon like a sword, he said, "I'm warning you, Dursley -I'm warning you -- one more word... "**

  
**In danger of being speared on the end of an umbrella by a bearded giant, Uncle Vernon's courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.**

  
**"That's better," said Hagrid, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.**

  
**Harry, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.**   
**"But what happened to Vol--, sorry -- I mean, You-Know-Who?"**

  
**"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see... he was gettin' more an' more powerful -- why'd he go?**

  
**"Some say he died.**   
**Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die.**

 

Dumbledore looked thoughtful at that statement, but since everyone was paying attention to the book, no one caught the look.

 

**Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don' believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta kinda trances. Don’t reckon they could've done if he was comin' back.**   
**"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers.**   
**Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, both of you. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on -- I dunno what it was, no one does -- but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."**

  
**Hagrid looked at them with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Harry, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A wizard? Him? How could he possibly be? He'd spent his life being clouted by Dudley, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon; if he was really a wizard, why hadn't they been turned into warty toads every time they'd tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he'd once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Dudley had always been able to kick him around like a football?**

“It doesn’t work that way Harry,” Hermione said sadly.

“I know that now,” Harry said.

 

**"Hagrid," he said quietly, "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard and Kira can´t be a witch."**

  
**To his surprise, "Speak for yourself" said Kira and Hagrid chuckled.**

  
**"Not a wizard, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"**

  
**Harry looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it... every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Harry, had been upset or angry... chased by Dudley's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach... dreading going to school with that ridiculous haircut, Kira and he´d managed to make it grow back... and the very last time Dudley had hit him, hadn't he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn't he and Kira set a boa constrictor on him?**

 

“Brilliant that was,” Fred said, looking over at Harry with a smirk, which Harry returned.

**Harry looked back at Hagrid, smiling, and saw that Hagrid was positively**   
**beaming at him.**

  
**"See?" said Hagrid. "Harry Potter, not a wizard -- you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."**

 

“Boy was he right,” Harry said with a slightly miserable tone.

 

Snape leaned forward slightly in his chair. _What, Potter didn’t like his fame? No, he had to have been putting on an act. Considering his home life, he should have enjoyed all the attention he got at school._

  
Kira glared at Snape.

  
**But Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight.**

  
**"Haven't I told you they're not going?" he hissed. "They´re going to Stonewall High and they´re gonna be grateful for it. I've read those letters and thye needs all sorts of rubbish -- spell books and wands and --"**

  
**"If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop them," growled Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter' s children goin' ter Hogwarts!**

 

“It does sound impossible,” Ron admitted.

 

**Yer mad. Their name's been down ever since they were born. They´re off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and they won't know themself. They'll be with youngsters of their own sort, fer a change, an' they'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had Albus Dumbled--"**

  
**"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH THEM MAGIC TRICKS!" yelled Uncle Vernon.**

 

“Oooh, now he’s done it!” The twins chorused and Fred eagerly picked up reading.

 

**But he had finally gone too far. Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head,**

**"NEVER," he thundered,**

**"- INSULT- ALBUS- DUMBLEDORE-IN-FRONT- OF- ME!"**

  
**He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley -- there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry and a smirking Kira saw a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers.**

There was a moment’s silence as everyone processed this new development, then laughter erupted in the room. Even Percy was struggling to keep a straight face.

**Uncle Vernon roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Hagrid and slammed the door behind them.**

  
**Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and stroked his beard.**   
**"Shouldn'ta lost me temper," he said ruefully, "but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."**

 

The laughter started again, and it took a full five minutes before Fred was composed enough to continue reading.

 

**He cast a sideways look at Harry and Kira under his bushy eyebrows.**   
**"Be grateful if yeh didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he said. "I'm -- er -- not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff -- one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job-”**

  
**"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.**

  
**"Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."**

  
***]**   
**[*"Why were you expelled?"**

 

“He won't tell you, Harry, we’ve tried asking him that before,” George said.

“Wanna bet we find out?” Ron asked him with a smirk.

“You're on, one Galleon.” The two shook hands and Ron and Harry grinned at each other.

 

**"It's gettin' late and we've got lots ter do tomorrow," said Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that."**

  
**He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Harry and Kira.**   
**"You can kip under that," he said. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."**

 

“Eww…” Ginny said in revoltion. “Hagrid you really need to clean out your pockets!”

“Anyway, that’s the end of the chapter. Who wants to go next?” Fred asked. Before anyone could speak up, the book floated out of Fred’s hands and into Luna’s. She gave everyone a dreamy smile before opening the book.


	5. “Chapter Five: Diagon Alley”

“ **Chapter Five: Diagon Alley”** Luna read.

**Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.**

**"It was a dream," he told himself firmly. "I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes I'll be at home in my cupboard."**

  
  


“Harry, it wasn’t a dream,” Hermione said gently.

  
  


“I know that now Mione, but at the time it seemed to good to be true.”

  
  


**There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.**

**And there's Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.**

**Tap. Tap. Tap.**

**"All right," Harry mumbled, "I'm getting up."**

**He sat up and Hagrid's heavy coat fell off him.**

  
  


“Does that prove that it wasn’t a dream?” Ron wondered.

  
  


**The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Hagrid himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.**

**Kira who seemd woken up earlier than him went straight to the window.**

**Harry scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him.**

  
  


“Oh it’s the happy balloon!” Fred cried in excitement.

  
  


**Kira jerked the window open.**

**The owl swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Hagrid, who didn't wake up. The owl then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Hagrid's coat.**

**"Don't do that."**

**Harry tried to wave the owl out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.**

  
  


“Never get in a paper delivery owl’s way, it never ends well,” Neville commented wisely.

  
  


**"Hagrid!" said Harry loudly. "There's an owl –”**

**"Pay him," Hagrid grunted into the sofa.**

**"What?"**

**"He wants payin' fer deliverin' the paper. Look in the pockets." Kira rolled her eyes at Harry and searched in Hagrids pockes.**

**Hagrid's coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets -- bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags... finally, Kira pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.**

**"Give him five Knuts," said Hagrid sleepily.**

  
  


“She won´t know what those are because of some Muggles Hagrid,” McGonagall said, all the while giving Dumbledore a cold look.

  
  


**"Knuts?"**

**"The little bronze ones."**

**Kira counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Kira could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.**

**Hagrid yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.**

  
  


“If you were getting up, why not do it yourself?” Ginny asked Hagrid.

  
  


Hagrid shrugged. “Wanted them to get used to the money.”

  
  


" **Best be Off, yeh both, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter London an' buy all yer stuff fer school."**

**Kira was turning over the wizard coins. She and Harry looked at them. Harry had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture.**

  
  


“No! The happy balloon must not be punctured!” George said in the same tone as his twin.

  
  


**"Um -- Hagrid?"**

**"Mm?" said Hagrid, who was pulling on his huge boots.**

**"I haven't got any money -- and you heard Uncle Vernon last night ... he won't pay for me to go and learn magic."**

**"Don't worry about that," said Hagrid, standing up and scratching his head. "D'yeh think yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"**

  
  


"The Potter family is very rich we would never leave you without leaving anything for both of you." James said.

**"But if their house was destroyed --"**

  
  


"You thought we keept money in our houses?" Raven asked her amusingly.

"Muggles have stories were "wizards" keepin their money in their houses besides we grow up in a family were even the word magic was forbitten." Kira said simply.

**"They didn' keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Gringotts. Wizards' bank. Have a sausage, they're not bad cold -- an' I wouldn' say no teh a bit o' yer birthday cake, neither."**

**"Wizards have banks?"**

**"Just the one. Gringotts. Run by goblins."**

**Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding. Kira glared at him.**

**"Goblins?"**

**"Yeah -- so yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it, I'll tell yeh that. Never mess with goblins, Harry** . 

  
  


Ron groaned. “You shouldn’t have told him that Hagrid! He’ll take it as a challenge!”

"He better not even think about it." Lily said looking at Harry." We haven´t messed with a goblin.. yet." Kira said smirking.

  
  


**Gringotts is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe -- 'cept maybe Hogwarts. As a matter o' fact, I gotta visit Gringotts anyway. Fer Dumbledore. Hogwarts business." Hagrid drew himself up proudly. "He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin' you gettin' things from Gringotts -- knows he can trust me, see.**

**"Got everythin'? Come on, then."**

**Harry and Kira followed Hagrid out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Vernon had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.**

**"How did you get here?" Kira asked, looking around for another boat.**

**"Flew," said Hagrid.**

**"Flew?"**

**"Yeah -- but we'll go back in this. Not s'pposed ter use magic now I've got yeh."**

**They settled down in the boat, Harry still staring at Hagrid, trying to imagine him flying. Earning himself another glare from Kira.**

  
  


“No offense Hagrid, but I still can´t picture it,” Harry said truthfully.

  
  


**"Seems a shame ter row, though," said Hagrid, giving Harry another of his sideways looks. "If I was ter -- er -- speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin' it at Hogwarts?"**

**"Of course not," said Harry, eager to see more magic. Hagrid pulled out the pink umbrella again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.**

  
  


“How’d your aunt and uncle get back though?” Hermione wondered.

  
  


“Who cares?” Ginny said.

  
  


“I think something about flagging down a coast guard was mentioned…” Harry said, trying to remember.

  
  


**"Why would you be mad to try and rob Gringotts?" Harry asked.**

**"Spells -- enchantments," said Hagrid, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. "They say there's dragons guardin' the highsecurity vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way -- Gringotts is hundreds of miles under London, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh'd die of hunger tryin' ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat."**

**Harry sat and thought about this while Hagrid read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry had learned from Uncle Vernon that people liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he'd never had so many questions in his life.**

  
  


“So this is where your curiousity began?” Ron inquired.

  
  


Harry shook his head. “I think it began with ten years of ‘Don’t ask questions’ being stored up inside.”

  
  


**"Ministry o' Magic messin' things up as usual," Hagrid muttered, turning the page.**

**"There's a Ministry of Magic?" Harry asked, before he could stop himself.**

**"'Course," said Hagrid. "They wanted Dumbledore fer Minister, o ' course, but he'd never leave Hogwarts,**

  
  


“No I wouldn’t,” Dumbledore said with a soft smile.

  
  


**so old Cornelius Fudge got the job. Bungler if ever there was one.**

**So he pelts Dumbledore with owls every morning, askin' fer advice."**

**"But what does a Ministry of Magic do?" Kira asked**

  
  


"Nothing important... except telling lies." Kira said crossing her arms.

  
  


**"Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there's still witches an' wizards up an' down the country."**

**"Why?" Harry asked**

" **Why? Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone."**

  
  


“True, I’d hate to handle some little old lady’s problems constantly,” Ginny said.

  
  


**At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Hagrid folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.**

**Passersby stared a lot at Hagrid as they walked through the little town to the station. Harry couldn't blame them. Not only was Hagrid twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, "See that, kids? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?"**

  
  


“Hagrid! You were supposed to remain inconspicuous!” McGonagall moaned.

  
  


**"Hagrid," said Harry, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, "did you say there are dragons at Gringotts?"**

**"Well, so they say," said Hagrid. "Crikey, I'd like a dragon."**

**"You'd like one?" Kira asked smiling.**

**"Wanted one ever since I was a kid**

  
  


Ron, Hermione, and Harry all exchanged glances before looking up at Hagrid who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Kira glared at the three at them with her 'leave him alone look and smiled at Hagrid who returned her smile

  
  


Remus caught these glances. “Oh no,” he breathed, sensing that there would be a dragon later on.

Lily noticed them too. "Please tell me you didn´t fight a Dragon." She said.

"We didn´t fight a Dragon ... in this year." Harry said earning himself a glare from Kira. Lily paled a little.

  
  


**\-- here we go."**

**They had reached the station. There was a train to London in five minutes' time. Hagrid, who didn't understand "Muggle money," as he called it, gave the bills to Harry so he could buy their tickets.**

**People stared more than ever on the train. Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.**

  
  


“What was that anyway Hagrid?” Harry asked.

  
  


“Blanket fer Fang,” Hagrid answered. “Never did finish that.”

  
  


**"Still got yer letter, Harry?" he asked as he counted stitches. Harry took the parchment envelope out of his pocket.**

**"Good," said Hagrid. "There's a list there of everything yeh both need."**

**Harry unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn't noticed the night before, and read:**

  
  


“Out loud? In a train full of Muggles?” Snape scoffed. Kira was about to say something.

"Is there a problem Sev?" Lily asked him cold. Snape didn´t answered.

  
  


**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

**UNIFORM**

**First-year students will require:**

**1\. Three sets of plain work robes (black)**

**2\. One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear**

**3\. One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)**

**4\. One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings)**

**Please note that all pupils' clothes should carry name tags**

**COURSE BOOKS**

**All students should have a copy of each of the following:**

**The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by Miranda Goshawk**

**A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot**

**Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling**

**A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration by Emetic SwitchOne Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore**

**Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger**

**Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander**

**The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble**

**OTHER EQUIPMENT**

**wand cauldron (pewter, standard size 2) set**

**glass or crystal phials**

**telescope set**

**brass scales**

**Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad**

**PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS**

  
  


“And that rule lasted how long for both of them?” Snape muttered under his breath.

"You’re just jealous Severus that Potter was able to defeat Slytherin,” McGonagall replied with a smirk.

  
  


"Actually, it was thanks to your perfect student Draco Malfoy the ferret." Kira said glaring at Snape and at Draco.

"What did you just called me?" Draco hissed at her.

"A Ferret or did you forgot the fourth year?" Kira said smirking.

Raven laughed as she saw Draco blushing. He looked at her. "Actually you really look like a ferret." She said making everyone (except for Snape, Lucius and Draco) laugh.

  
  


" **Can we buy all this in London?" Harry wondered aloud.**

**"If yeh know where to go," said Hagrid.**

**Harry and Kira had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.**

" **I don't know how the Muggles manage without magic," he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.**

**Hagrid was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Harry and Kira had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks?**

  
  


“Yes, yes…and yes,” Fred and George answered.

  
  


**Might this not all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up?**

  
  


“Doubtful,” Ron snorted.

"I doubt that they even have enough brain cells to do that." Kira said making everyone laugh.

  
  


**If Harry hadn't known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn't help trusting him.**

**"This is it," said Hagrid, coming to a halt, "the Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."**

**It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn't see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he, Kira and Hagrid could see it.**

  
  


“You’re right Harry, Muggles cant see it all. You should have heard me try to explain that to my parents,” Hermione told him.

  
  


**Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him and Kira inside.**

**For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking to the old bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, "The usual, Hagrid?"**

**"Can't, Tom, I'm on Hogwarts business," said Hagrid, clapping his great hand on Harry's shoulder and the other one on Kira´s shoulder making Harry's knees buckle and Kira looking away.**

  
  


“Way to draw attention to him Hagrid,” George said.

  
  


**"Good Lord," said the bartender, peering at them, "is this -- can this be --?"**

**The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.**

**"Bless my soul," whispered the old bartender, "Harry Potter... what an honor and you are his sister Kira Potter."**

**He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and Kira. He seized their hands, tears in his eyes.**

  
  


“And so it begins,” Harry said darkly. “Our fame for being orphans.”

  
  


**"Welcome back, Mr. and Ms Potter, welcome back."**

**Harry didn't know what to say. Kira looked uncomfortable.**

  
  


"I don´t think she just looked uncomfortable. I guess she was uncomfortable with this." Raven said.

Kira nodded. "Yeah, believe it or not. I hate attention and standing in the center of anything. Even though some idiots think that I love the attention that I get. But they wrong I don´t." Kira said.

  
  


**Everyone was looking at them. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.**

**Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Harry and Kira found themselves shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.**

**"Doris Crockford, Mr. and Ms Potter, can't believe I'm meeting you at last."**

**"So proud, Mr. and Ms Potter, I'm just so proud."**

**"Always wanted to shake your hand -- I'm all of a flutter."**

**"Delighted, Mr. and Ms Potter, just can't tell you, Diggle's the name, Dedalus Diggle."**

  
  


“He shows up a lot doesn’t he?” Harry mused.

  
  


**"I've seen you before!" said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle's top hat fell off in his excitement. "You bowed to me once in a shop."**

**"He remembers!" cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. "Did you hear that? He remembers me!"**

**Harry and Kira shook hands again and again -- Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.**

**A pale young man made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.**

**"Professor Quirrell!" said Hagrid.**

  
  


“Quirrell?” Remus questioned, looking at Snape. “That Ravenclaw three years ahead of us?”

  
  


“The same.” Snape answered coldly. Then, in a lower tone, “Miserable cowardly traitor.”

Everyone who knew the truth about him growled.

  
  


**"Harry, Kira, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."**

**"P-P-Potter," stammered Professor Quirrell, grasping Harry's hand and then Kira´s, "c-can't t-tell you how p- pleased I am to meet you."**

**"What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Quirrell?" Kira asked.**

**"D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Arts," muttered Professor Quirrell, as though he'd rather not think about it.**

  
  


“Probably didn’t want to,” Harry commented nonchalantly.

  
  


" **N-not that you n-need it, eh, P-P-Potter?" He laughed nervously. "You'll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I've g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself." He looked terrified at the very thought.**

  
  


“Probably was,” Harry said in the same tone as before.

  
  


**But the others wouldn't let Professor Quirrell keep Harry and Kira to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Hagrid managed to make himself heard over the babble.**

**"Must get on -- lots ter buy. Come on, Harry, Kira."**

**Doris Crockford shook Harry's hand one last time, and Hagrid led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.**

**Hagrid grinned at them.**

**"Told yeh, didn't I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Quirrell was tremblin' ter meet yeh -- mind you, he's usually tremblin'."**

**"Is he always that nervous?"**

**"Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin' outta books but then he took a year off ter get some firsthand experience.... They say he met vampires in the Black Forest, and there was a nasty bit o' trouble with a hag**

  
  


“Wish that was all he met,” Harry muttered and those who knew the full details about Quirrell nodded in agreement. 

Kira rolled her eyes. " Would you please shut up Howard." Kira said. "Would you please stop calling me Howard?" Harry asked. "Okay, Harvey" Kira said smirking.

  
  


**\-- never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject now, where's me umbrella?"**

**Vampires? Hags? Harry's head was swimming. Hagrid, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.**

**"Three up... two across he muttered. "Right, stand back, both of you."**

**He tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.**

**The brick he had touched quivered -- it wriggled -- in the middle, a small hole appeared -- it grew wider and wider -- a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.**

**"Welcome," said Hagrid, "to Diagon Alley."**

**He grinned at Harry's and Kira´s amazement. They stepped through the archway. Harry and Kira looked quickly over their shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.**

**The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons -- All Sizes - Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver -- Self-Stirring -- Collapsible,**

  
  


“Don’t get a collapsible one,” Remus said shaking his head. “The thing will never stay upright.”

  
  


“And you speak from experience?” Harry asked with a smirk.

  
  


“Not me, Peter.” Remus said a dark look in his eyes.

  
  


**said a sign hanging over them.**

**"Yeah, you'll be needin' one," said Hagrid, "but we gotta get yer money first."**

**Harry and Kira wished they had about eight more eyes.**

  
  


“I felt the same way the first time,” Hermione said with a grin, thinking back to the first time she entered Diagon Alley. Kira smiled softly at her.

  
  


**They turned their heads in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping. A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, "Dragon liver, seventeen Sickles an ounce, they're mad...."**

  
  


“Bet that was mum, she was complaining about prices when she got home that day,” Ginny said with a small laugh.

  
  


**A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium -- Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Harry's age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. "Look," Harry and Kira heard one of them say, "the new Nimbus Two Thousand -- fastest ever --"**

  
  


“Nu uh, the Firebolt is way faster.” Harry stated with a grin, thinking about his beloved broomstick. 

  
  


**There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry and Kira had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon....**

  
  


Remus shivered slightly at the mention of the moon but no one noticed except for Hermione, Sirus and James.

  
  


**"Gringotts," said Hagrid** .

**They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was -**

**"Yeah, that's a goblin," said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:**

  
  


**Enter, stranger, but take heed**

**Of what awaits the sin of greed,**

**For those who take, but do not earn,**

**Must pay most dearly in their turn.**

**So if you seek beneath our floors**

**A treasure that was never yours,**

**Thief, you have been warned, beware**

**Of finding more than treasure there.**

  
  


“I always liked that poem,” Luna said looking up from the book.

  
  


**"Like I said, Yeh'd be mad ter try an' rob it," said Hagrid.**

**A pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these. Hagrid, Kira and Harry made for the counter.**

**"Morning," said Hagrid to a free goblin. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's and Ms Kira Potter´s safe."**

**"You have their key, Sir?"**

**"Got it here somewhere," said Hagrid, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a handful of moldy dog biscuits over the goblin's book of numbers. The goblin wrinkled his nose.**

  
  


Hermione and Ginny repeated the same action as the goblin.

  
  


**Harry watched the goblin on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.**

**"Got it," said Hagrid at last, holding up a tiny golden key.**

**The goblin looked at it closely.**

**"That seems to be in order."**

**"An' I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore," said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. "It's about the YouKnow-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."**

**The goblin read the letter carefully.**

**"Very well," he said, handing it back to Hagrid, "I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Griphook!"**

**Griphook was yet another goblin. Once Hagrid had crammed all the dog**

**biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Harry followed Griphook toward one of the doors leading off the hall.**

**"What's the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?" Harry asked.**

**"Can't tell yeh that," said Hagrid mysteriously. "Very secret. Hogwarts business.**

  
  


Both Ron and Hermione groaned. “Now you did it Hagrid,” Ron said.

  
  


**Dumbledore's trusted me. More'n my job's worth ter tell yeh that."**

**Griphook held the door open for them. Harry, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Griphook whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in -- Hagrid with some difficulty -- and were off.**

**At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible.**

  
  


“That’s very impressive Harry. Not many people can even track that many,” Remus told him.

  
  


**The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Griphook wasn't steering.**

**Harry's eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late - - they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.**

“ **I never know," Harry called to Hagrid over the noise of the cart, "what's the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?"**

  
  


“Stalagmites grow from the ground,” Hermione said.

  
  


“And stalactites drop down from the ceiling,” Remus finished. Kira smirked at them.

  
  


" **Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it," said Hagrid. "An' don' ask me questions just now, I think I'm gonna be sick."**

  
  


Hermione and Remus only smiled at this and shook their heads. "You know you and uncle Remus think the same." Kira whispered to Hermione who only rolled her eyes.

  
  


**He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small**

**door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.**

**Griphook unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry and Kira gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.**

**"All yours," smiled Hagrid.**

**All Harry's and Kira´s -- it was incredible. The Dursleys couldn't have known about this or they'd have had it from them faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry and Kira cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to them, buried deep under London.**

**Hagrid helped Harry and Kira pile some of it into a bag.**

**"The gold ones are Galleons," he explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough.**

  
  


“Muggle money is easier though,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “After all, the amount is on the bills.”

"Agree." Kira and Lily said at them same time.

  
  


**Right, that should be enough fer a couple o' terms, we'll keep the rest safe for yeh." He turned to Griphook. "Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?"**

  
  


“There’s only one speed Hagrid,” Ginny informed the half giant.

  
  


**"One speed only," said Griphook.**

**They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck** .

**Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.**

**"Stand back," said Griphook importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his long fingers and it simply melted away.**

**"If anyone but a Gringotts goblin tried that, they'd be sucked through the door and trapped in there," said Griphook.**

" **How often do you check to see if anyone's inside?" Kira asked.**

**"About once every ten years," said Griphook with a rather nasty grin.**

  
  


“Charming.” Professor Sprout commented dryly.

  
  


**Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Harry was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least -- but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.**

  
  


“Potter not asking a question? What has the world come to?” Snape grumbled under his breath.

  
  


**"Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don't talk to me on the way back, it's best if I keep me mouth shut," said Hagrid.**

**One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn't know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn't have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he'd had in his whole life -- more money than even Dudley had ever had.**

**"Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." He did still look a bit sick, so Harry entered Madam Malkin's shop alone,**

  
  


“You left him on his own?” McGonagall asked Hagrid who looked sheepish.

  
  


**feeling nervous.**

**Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve.**

**"Hogwarts, clear?" she said, when Harry started to speak. "Got the lot here -- another young man being fitted up just now, in fact. "**

**In the back of the shop, a boy with a pale, pointed face**

  
  


“Oh no,” Ron groaned.

  
  


“Yup, enter the ferret,” Harry agreed.

Draco tensed while Raven and his parents leaned in to hear what happened while they were gone.

**was standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin stood Harry on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.**

**"Hello," said the boy, "Hogwarts, too?"**

**"Yes," said Harry.**

**"My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands," said the boy.**

"You do know that the wand is choosing his wizard or witch right?" Kira asked. "Besides me and mom were buying me a wand because it took you thousand years to buy an unifrom." Raven said looking at him.

**He had a bored, drawling voice. "Then I'm going to drag them off to took at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."**

  
  


“Geez, he was that much of a git even before school started?” Fred wondered.

"So Draco you wanted to bully me buy you a broom?" Lucius asked in a stern tone. Draco tensed but didn´t answered. "I think I´m going to close all your brooms in the closet for a few months don´t you think?" He said. "While Raven is getting new one." Lucius said smiling at her. Raven smirked at Draco.

**Harry was strongly reminded of Dudley.**

Draco paled while Raven was laughing very loud at this.

**"Have you got your own broom?" the boy went on.**

**"No," said Harry.**

**"Play Quidditch at all?"**

**"No," Harry said again, wondering what on earth Quidditch could be.**

" **I do -- Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"**

**"No," said Harry, feeling more stupid by the minute.**

**"Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I'll be in Slytherin, all our family have been -- imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"**

  
  


“There is nothing wrong with Hufflepuff.” Sprout huffed, defending her house.

"But Draco is right he doesn´t belong into Huffelpuff." Raven said glaring at him.

  
  


**"Mmm," said Harry, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.**

**"I say, look at that man!" said the boy suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Hagrid was standing there, grinning at Harry and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn't come in.**

**"That's Hagrid," said Harry, pleased to know something the boy didn't. "He works at Hogwarts."**

**"Oh," said the boy, "I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"**

**"He's the gamekeeper," said Harry. He was liking the boy less and less every second. Kira already hated him and glared at him the whole time.**

**"Yes, exactly. I heard he's a sort of savage -- lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed."**

  
  


Remus snickered and Harry turned toward him. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?”

  
  


“Me? No, nothing at all. You might want to ask Padfoot though, I believe he and your father might know something.” Remus answered with a mischievous smile. Harry looked at Sirius and James. "Later" James said laughing.

  
  


**"I think he's brilliant," said Harry coldly.**

**"Do you?" said the boy, with a slight sneer. "Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"**

**"They're dead," said Harry shortly. He didn't feel much like going into the matter with this boy.**

**"Oh, sorry," said the other,. not sounding sorry at all. "But they were our kind, weren't they?"**

  
  


"I was really sorry." Draco said. "The question was not necessary Draco!" Narzissa said stern. "Actually it was necessary." Lucius started but didn´t went any further as he saw the angry looks of Narzissa and Raven.

  
  


**"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."**

  
  


“Diplomatic answer, very good,” Flitwick nodded approvingly.

  
  


**"I really don't think they should let the other sort in, do you? They're just not the same, they've never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Hogwarts until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old wizarding families.**

  
  


“Arrogant prat.” Harry spat. “He’s just upset because he knows that some Muggleborns are smarter than he is.” " Well, I know one Muggleborn who is beating him in every class." Kira said smiling at Hermione. Hermione blushed slightly.

  
  


**What's your surname, anyway?"**

**But before Harry could answer, Madam Malkin said, "That's you done, my dear," and Harry, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the boy, hopped down from the footstool.**

**"Well, I'll see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," said the drawling boy.**

  
  


“Oh, you’ll see him all right,” Ron said with a frown.

  
  


**Harry was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).**

**"What's up?" said Hagrid.**

**"Nothing," Harry lied.**

  
  


“That’s one of your favorite things to say isn’t it?” Ginny asked Harry who blushed a little under her gaze.

"Yes. Yes, it is." Kira said answered.

  
  


**They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Harry cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, "Hagrid, what's Quidditch?"**

**"Blimey, Harry, I keep forgettin' how little yeh know -- not knowin' about Quidditch!"**

**"Don't make me feel worse," said Harry. He told Hagrid about the pale boy in Madam Malkin's.**

**"--and he said people from Muggle families shouldn't even be allowed in."**

**"Yer not from a Muggle family. If he'd known who yeh were -- he's grown up knowin' yer name if his parents are wizardin' folk. You saw what everyone in the Leaky Cauldron was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o' the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in 'em in a long line o' Muggles -- look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!"**

  
  


“Very true,” Dumbledore said.

  
  


“Lily is an amazing witch, you would never have known she was a Muggle born,” Flitwick agreed. Lily blushed.

"I could say the same thing about Hermione." Kira said smiling.

"Of course you would." Raven said smirking while Kira rolled her eyes.

  
  


**"So what is Quidditch?"**

**"It's our sport. Wizard sport. It's like -- like soccer in the Muggle world -- everyone follows Quidditch -- played up in the air on broomsticks and there's four balls -- sorta hard ter explain the rules."**

  
  


“No its not!” Ron, Harry, Fred and George all exclaimed.

  
  


Hermione shook her head. “Boys,” she sighed.

"Hey!" Kira exclaimed. Hermione only shrugged smiling.

  
  


  
  


**"And what are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"**

**"School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but --"**

  
  


“Hagrid!” Sprout said disapprovingly.

  
  


“It’s my fault Professor, I interrupted him before he could finish.” Harry said quickly.

  
  


**"I bet I'm in Hufflepuff" said Harry gloomily.**

**"Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin," said Hagrid darkly. "There's not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin. You-Know-Who was one."**

"Not true Huffelpuff is the only house were nobody went bad. In the other houses there were people who were on Voldemorts side." Kira said and rolled her eyes as the most people shuddered at his name.

  
  


  
  


**"Vol-, sorry - You-Know-Who was at Hogwarts?"**

**"Years an' years ago," said Hagrid.**

**They bought Harry's school books in a shop called Flourish and Blotts**

  
  


“Gee, who’s favorite store do you think that is?” Fred asked in an obvious tone and everyone turned to look at Hermione. She took it in stride though, and merely brushed away the looks.

“Just because I’m the only one here that reads…” She trailed off.

  
  


“I take offense to that statement,” Remus piped up.

  
  


“All right, just because I’m the only child here that reads,” Hermione corrected.

"Hey! Hermione stop forgetting me." Kira cried pouting.

"Sorry.I forgot." Hermione said laughing as she hugged Kira.

"I´m also clearly offended by this." Raven said.

"You don´t count." Kira said smirking.

"Why not?" Raven asked her.

"Cause you aren´t really reading the books. You just look at the pictures." Kira said teasingly.

"Only when the book is boring." Raven pointed out smiling.

  
  


**where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue- Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor Vindictus Viridian.**

  
  


“Harry!” George said, clutching at his heart.

  
  


“And here we thought you would make Maurader material!” Fred said, mimicking his twin’s action.

  
  


**"I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley."**

  
  


“Oh, well that’s all right then.”

  
  


" **I'm not sayin' that's not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances," said Hagrid. "An' anyway, yeh couldn' work any of them curses yet, yeh'll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level."**

**Hagrid wouldn't let Harry and Kira buy a solid gold cauldron, either ("It says pewter on yer list"), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry and Kira. Kira herself himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).**

  
  


“I was actually interested in Potions until I met the teacher,” Harry commented, not exactly softly and Snape glowered at him.

Lily and James glared at Snape

  
  


**Outside the Apothecary, Hagrid checked Harry's list again.**

**"Just yer wand left - A yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."**

**Harry and Kira felt themselves go red.**

**"You don't have to --" Kira said embarressed.**

**"I know I don't have to. Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at**

  
  


“Sorry Neville,” Hagrid interjected.

  
  


Neville merely smiled. “S’all right Hagrid. Trevor’s barely near me anyways he escapes so much.”

  
  


**\- an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."**

**Twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Harry now carried a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.**

**Kira on the other hand carried a gray cat. "I k´ow I said I don´ like cats, but this one remind me kina ef ya." Hagrid said smiling Kira hugged her new friend. He couldn't stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Quirrell.**

  
  


Harry frowned at that description, not wanting to be compared to that traitor.

While Kira was softly caressing her cat who was snuggling with Hermiones cat.

  
  


  
  


**"Don' mention it," said Hagrid gruffly. "Don' expect you've had a lotta presents from them Dursleys.**

  
  


James’ eyes narrowed at the book. They should have...

  
  


**Just Ollivanders left now - only place fer wands, Ollivanders, and yeh gotta have the best wand."**

**A magic wand... this was what Harry and Kira had been really looking forward to.**

**The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.**

  
  


“I was wondering whose wand that was,” Harry mused.

  
  


“Unless I am mistaken, that would be Merlin’s wand Harry,” Dumbledore said smiling at the boy’s shocked expression.

  
  


**A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Hagrid sat on to wait. Harry and Kira felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; they swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to them and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of their necks prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.**

  
  


“You can sense magic?” Ron asked, his voice full of skeptisim.

  
  


“I felt it too…I thought it was just the store,” Hermione admitted.

"That usually means that you´re smarter or wiser than the others." Dumbeldore said.

  
  


**"Good afternoon," said a soft voice. Harry jumped. Hagrid must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair.**

  
  


Hagrid blushed and looked down at the table while Fred and George chuckled.

  
  


**An old man was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.**

**"Hello," said Harry awkwardly.**

**"Hello, sir." Kira said politely** .

  
  


"Is funny how much of a difference you can see between you two just reading this two sentences." Raven said slightly smirking.

"It shows once again how similar Kira and Lily are." Sirius said grinning.

Lily and Kira blushes slightly.

  
  


  
  


**"Ah yes," said the man. "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry and Kira Potter." It wasn't a question.**

**"You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work."**

  
  


“Lily is extremely gifted at Charms,” Flitwick said smiling down at Harry.

Lily smiled slightly.

  
  


" **And you Ms Potter you have your father´s eyes. His wand was favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pilable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration."**

  
  


"And James is excellent at Transiguration." Mcgonagall said with a fond smile.

James grinned proudly.

  
  


**Mr. Ollivander moved closer to them. Harry wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.**

  
  


“That they are,” everyone agreed.

  
  


**"Well, I say your father favored it -- it's really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course."**

**Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose to nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.**

**"And that's where..."**

**Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry's forehead with a long, white finger.**

**"I'm sorry to say I sold the wand that did it," he said softly. "Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands... well, if I'd known what that wand was going out into the world to do...."**

**He shook his head and then, to Harry's relief, spotted Hagrid.**

**"Rubeus! Rubeus Hagrid! How nice to see you again.... Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn't it?"**

  
  


“That’s huge!” Ginny said in a whisper.

  
  


“Well he is half giant,” Hermione whispered back. Kira chuckled slightly at this.

  
  


**"It was, sir, yes," said Hagrid.**

**"Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?" said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern.**

**"Er -- yes, they did, yes," said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. "I've still got the pieces, though," he added brightly.**

**"But you don't use them?" said Mr. Ollivander sharply.**

**"Oh, no, sir," said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.**

  
  


  
  


“Never use them eh Hagrid?” Fred teased and George laughed.

  
  


**"Hmmm," said Mr. Ollivander, giving Hagrid a piercing look. "Well, now -- Mr. and Ms Potter. Let me see." He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. "Which is your wand arm?"**

**"Er -- well, I'm right-handed," said Harry. "Me too, sir." Kira answered.**

**"Hold out your arm. That's it." He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As he measured, he said, "Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard's wand."**

  
  


“He loves giving that speech,” Remus noted. “He says it to everyone that enters,”

  
  


**Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Then he did the same thing with Kira.**

  
  


“Great observation skills mate,” Ron teased lightly.

  
  


**Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.**

**"That will do," he said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. "Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. just take it and give it a wave."**

**Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.**

**"Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try --"**

**Harry tried -- but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.**

**"No, no -here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out."**

**Harry tried. And tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.**

  
  


“He loves tricky customers,” Dumbledore said.

  
  


**"Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we'll find the perfect match here somewhere -- I wonder, now - - yes, why not -- unusual combination -- holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple."**

**Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, "Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well... how curious... how very curious... "**

**He put Harry's wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, "Curious... curious..**

**"Sorry," said Harry, "but what's curious?"**

  
  


Harry and Dumbledore exchanged glances, both knowing exactly what was so curious.

  
  


**Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare.**

**"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather -- just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother why, its brother gave you that scar."**

  
  


“Your wand is the brother to You-Know-Who’s?” Ron questioned faintly.

  
  


Harry nodded. “Believe it or not, its actually a good thing. Saved my life last year…”

  
  


**Harry swallowed.**

**"Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember.... I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter.... After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things -- terrible, yes, but great."**

**Harry shivered. He wasn't sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much.**

**After that it was Kira´s turn. She tried many wands even more than Harry. Finally she found the right one. Her wand was made of englisch Oak and Dragon heartstrings. Fifteen inches. Swifty.**

  
  


"Englisch Oak and Dragon Heartstrings? Interesting." Dumbeldore said.

"Wasn´t Merlins wand made of English Oak? I read it somewhere." Hermione wondered.

"Yeah, Merlins wand was made of English Oak. It´s rarerly used and that´s why it´s so interesting." Dumbledore said.

  
  


**Harry and Kira both paid seven gold Galleons for their wands, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.**

  
  


**The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Harry, Kira and Hagrid made their way back down Diagon Alley, back through the wall, back through the Leaky Cauldron, now empty. Harry didn't speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn't even notice how much people were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the snowy owl asleep in its cage on Harry's lap. Up another escalator, out into Paddington station; Harry only realized where they were when Hagrid tapped him on the shoulder.**

**"Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves," he said. Kira looked at Harry.**

**He bought Harry and Kira hamburgers and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Harry kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.**

  
  


Hermione nodded sympathetically.

  
  


**"You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet," said Hagrid.**

**Harry wasn't sure he could explain. He'd just had the best birthday of his life -- and yet -- he chewed his hamburger, trying to find the words.**

**"Everyone thinks I'm special," he said at last. "All those people in the Leaky Cauldron, Professor Quirrell, Mr. Ollivander... but I don't know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I'm famous and I can't even remember what I'm famous for. I don't know what happened when Vol-, sorry -- I mean, the night my parents died."**

**Hagrid leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.**

**"Don' you worry, Harry. You'll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you'll be just fine. just be yerself. I know it's hard. Yeh've been singled out, an' that's always hard. But yeh'll have a great time at Hogwarts -- I did -- still do, 'smatter of fact."**

  
  


“You were right Hagrid,” Harry said giving the man a smile. “Even after everything, I still manage to have fun.”

  
  


**Hagrid helped Harry and Kira on to the train that would take him back to the Dursleys, then handed him an envelope.**

**"Yer ticket fer Hogwarts, " he said. "First o' September -- King's Cross -- it's all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Dursleys, send me a letter with yer owl, she'll know where to find me.... See yeh soon, Harry, Kira."**

  
  


“You didn’t tell him how to get on the platform?” Hermione asked.

  
  


“Don’t worry Mione, I managed all right,” Harry said giving the Weasleys a half smile.

  
  


**The train pulled out of the station. Harry wanted to watch Hagrid until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Hagrid had gone.**

  
  


“That’s the end of the chapter,” Luna said. “Who would like to read next?”

  
  


“I will Miss Lovegood,” Professor Sprout said, levitating the book up to the table.


End file.
